and that of the Gospels.] It is frequently urged that it was
impossible for a band of illiterate fishermen to have created out of
their own fancy so glorious a character as that of Jesus, and that it
would be more miraculous to suppose that the unique sayings of Jesus
and his incomparably perfect life were invented by a few plain people
than to believe in his actual existence. But it is not honest to throw
the question into that form. We do not know who were the authors of
the gospels. It is pure assumption that they were written by plain
fishermen. The authors of the gospels do not disclose their identity.
The words, _according_ to Matthew, Mark, etc., represent only the
guesses or opinions of translators and copyists.

Both in the gospels and in Christian history the apostles are
represented as illiterate men. But if they spoke Greek, and could also
write in Greek, they could not have been just plain fishermen. That
they were Greeks, not Jews, and more or less educated, may be safely
inferred from the fact that they all write in Greek, and one of them
at least seems to be acquainted with the Alexandrian school of
philosophy. Jesus was supposedly a Jew, his twelve apostles all
Jews--how is it, then, that the only biographies of him extant are all
in Greek? If his fishermen disciples were capable of composition in
Greek, they could not have been illiterate men, if they could not have
written in Greek--which was a rare accomplishment for a Jew, according
to what Josephus says--then the gospels were not written by the
apostles of Jesus. But the fact that though these documents are in a
language alien both to Jesus and his disciples, they are unsigned and
undated, goes to prove, we think, that their editors or authors wished
to conceal their identity that they may be taken for the apostles
themselves.