in the narrative of the fourth Gospel.  On the contrary, I dare defy any one to compose a Life of Jesus with any meaning, from the discourses which John attributes to him.  This manner of incessantly preaching and demonstrating himself, this perpetual argumentation, this stage-effect devoid of simplicity, these long arguments after each miracle, these stiff and awkward discourses, the tone of which is so often false and unequal,[4] would not be tolerated by a man of taste compared with the delightful sentences of the synoptics.  There are here evidently artificial portions,[5] which represent to us the sermons of Jesus, as the dialogues of Plato render us the conversations of Socrates.  They are, so to speak, the variations of a musician improvising on a given theme.  The theme is not without some authenticity; but in the execution, the imagination of the artist has given itself full scope.  We are sensible of the factitious mode of procedure, of rhetoric, of gloss.[6] Let us add that the vocabulary of Jesus cannot be recognized in the portions of which we speak.  The expression, “kingdom of God,” which was so familiar to the Master,[7] occurs there but once.[8] On the other hand, the style of the discourses attributed to Jesus by the fourth Gospel, presents the most complete analogy with that of the Epistles of St. John; we see that in writing the discourses, the author followed not his recollections, but rather the somewhat monotonous movement of his own thought.  Quite a new mystical language is introduced, a language of which the synoptics had not the least idea ("world,” “truth,” “life,” “light,” “darkness,” etc.).  If Jesus had ever spoken in this style, which has nothing of Hebrew, nothing Jewish, nothing Talmudic in it, how, if I may thus express myself, is it that but a single one of his hearers should have so well kept the secret?

[Footnote 1:  The verses, chap. xx. 30, 31, evidently form the original conclusion.]

[Footnote 2:  Chap. vi. 2, 22, vii. 22.]

[Footnote 3:  For example, that which concerns the announcement of the betrayal by Judas.]

[Footnote 4:  See, for example, chaps. ii. 25, iii. 32, 33, and the long disputes of chapters vii., viii., and ix.]

[Footnote 5:  We feel often that the author seeks pretexts for introducing certain discourses (chaps. iii., v., viii., xiii., and following).]

[Footnote 6:  For example, chap. xvii.]

[Footnote 7:  Besides the synoptics, the Acts, the Epistles of St. Paul, and the Apocalypse, confirm it.]

[Footnote 8:  John iii. 3, 5.]