Let us now return to the New Testament narrative; for what happened
after the disappearance of Jesus is instructive. Unfortunately, the
crucifixion was a complete political success. I remember that when
I described it in these terms once before, I greatly shocked a most
respectable newspaper in my native town, the Dublin Daily Express,
because my journalistic phrase showed that I was treating it as an
ordinary event like Home Rule or the Insurance Act: that is (though this
did not occur to the editor), as a real event which had really happened,
instead of a portion of the Church service. I can only repeat, assuming
as I am that it was a real event and did actually happen, that it was
as complete a success as any in history. Christianity as a specific
doctrine was slain with Jesus, suddenly and utterly. He was hardly cold
in his grave, or high in his heaven (as you please), before the apostles
dragged the tradition of him down to the level of the thing it has
remained ever since. And that thing the intelligent heathen may study,
if they would be instructed in it by modern books, in Samuel Butler's
novel, The Way of All Flesh.