Every one who sets himself to write the Life of Jesus without any predetermined theory as to the relative value of the Gospels, letting himself be guided solely by the sentiment of the subject, will be led in numerous instances to prefer the narration of John to that of the synoptics.

The last months of the life of Jesus especially are explained by John alone; a number of the features of the passion, unintelligible in the synoptics,[3] resume both probability and possibility 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.