'I distinguish absolutely between the character of Jesus and the
character of Christianity--in other words between Jesus of Nazareth and
Jesus the Christ. Shorn of all supernatural pretensions, Jesus emerges
from the great mass of human beings as an almost perfect type of
simplicity, veracity, and natural affection. "Love one another" was
the Alpha and Omega of His teaching, and He carried out the precept
through every hour of His too brief life.... But how blindly, how
foolishly my critics have interpreted the inner spirit of my argument,
how utterly have they failed to realise that the whole aim of the work
is to justify Jesus against the folly, the cruelty, the infamy, the
ignorance of the creed upbuilt upon His grave. I show in cipher, as it
were, that those who crucified Him once would crucify Him again, were
He to return amongst us. I imply that among the first to crucify Him
would be the members of His Own Church. But nowhere surely do I imply
that His soul, in its purely personal elements, in its tender and
sympathising humanity was not the very divinest that ever wore earth
about it.'--ROBERT BUCHANAN in Letter of January 1892 to _Daily
Chronicle_ regarding his poem _The Wandering Jew_. _Robert Buchanan:
His Life, Life's Work, and Life's Friendships_, by Harriett Jay, pp.
274-5.
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