It may be no accident that the examiners in the Honour School of Theology at Oxford commonly find that the worst performance in the examination is in the paper on the Four Gospels. If this is a symptom that candidates approach that paper with a certain diffidence, it is not too difficult to find an explanation. For among all the subjects which are usually included under the term ‘theology’, the study of the New Testament and in particular the study of the gospels is the one where the committed Christian is likely to find both his chief joys and his deepest sorrows. We hope to indicate the joys before we have finished, but we shall begin with the sorrows.