How is it possible at a time like the present, when the whole world is at war, to sit down calmly and consider such a subject as the Earliest Gospel, to study the evangelic
tradition at the stage in which it first took
literary form, to discuss such
fine points as the emergence of a particular theology in early Christianity or the transition from primitive Christian messianism to the normative doctrine of later creeds, confessions, hymns, and prayers?