He reviewed the statements of the Gospels concerning Christ, though he declared them to be mainly traditional and of no value. I agreed that they contained confusing statements, and inflicted more or less with justice and reason; but I said I thought there was truth in them, too.
"Why do you think so?" he asked.
"Because they contain matters that are self-evident—things eternally and essentially just."
"Then you make your own Bible?"
"Yes, from those materials combined with human reason."
"Then it does not matter where the truth, as you call it, comes from?"
I admitted that the source did not matter; that truth from Shakespeare, Epictetus, or Aristotle was quite as valuable as from the Scriptures. We were on common ground now. He mentioned Marcus Aurelius, the Stoics, and their blameless lives. I, still pursuing the thought of Jesus, asked:
"Do you not think it strange that in that day when Christ came, admitting that there was a Christ, such a character could have come at all—in the time of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, when all was ceremony and unbelief?"
"I remember," he said, "the Sadducees didn't believe in hell. He brought them one."
"Nor the resurrection. He brought them that, also."