When all allowance has been made for these limiting factors — the chances of oral transmission, the effect of translation, the interest of teachers
in making the sayings «contemporary,» and simple human fallibility — it remains that the first three gospels offer a body of sayings on the whole so consistent, so
coherent, and withal so distinctive
in manner, style content, that no reasonable critic should doubt, whatever reservations he may have about individual sayings, that we find reflected
here the thought of a single, unique teacher.