to think such audacious thoughts, that would be to learn something. The task would be to account for the formation of the gospel itself in the context of a later social history, not to use it as a guide to conjure up chimeras at the beginning. Instead of assuming eruptions of inexplicable energy penetrating the human scene from without, giving shape to certain vehicles of influence (“traditions,” “trajectories,” “messages,” “syntagmatic structures”) that could bear the aura of mystique and spiritual