20 APRIL 1956, Page 34

JUDAS'S SERVICE

Wingin fourth Gospel is likely to -c..,1,11ing in putting the Last Supper in the ev'"" is before the Passover. Nevertheless, there hardly a Biblical scholar today who values trst fourth Gospel, as history, as high as the I'm three. (See The Christ of the GosPeb' Gardner-Smith, p. 49 IL) Of the incid° referred to by Mr. Hollis which 1 ilidgef,„Ifiltli on probable, several are mentioned in the 1`.- Gospel only. The rest arc 'mentioned lY the first Gospel. The author of the first Gasollt used a special source of his own, which is very little value in its narrative sections (see The Four Gospels, by Streeter, p. 502, f.). Bishop Hornby thinks I use the word 'Probable' too mtich. Bishop Butler, the Philosopher of the Church of England in the eighteenth century, said that probability is the guide of life. It is also our guide in the study of ancient history. Our information is so scanty and there arc so many gaps in it that we can rarely offer proof beyond the possibility of contradiction.—Yours faithfully,

J. K. NETTLEFOLD

The Rectory, Bourton-on-the-Water, Glos