they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up and thrust him out of the city."1

He began his public ministry about 30 A. D., seventy miles north of Jerusalem, in Galilee, from the natives of which district he selected his twelve apostles. All were poor and ignorant men, without influential friends, proved talent for administration, or experience in prominent public business. There is no explicit statement that any one of them could write or speak Greek, or understand the speech in which the Mosaic law was written. Peter and John, leading men among them, were fishermen, and unlearned. Matthew belonged to the disreputable class of tax gatherers.

Having neither property nor productive occupation, Jesus and his apostles obtained their living by mendicancy. They had no congregation of disciples to support them. When hungry they went into a house, either of an acquaintance or stranger, and, directly or indirectly, solicited food. Their clothing consisted of nothing save a mantle or blanket and a pair of sandals.

If Jesus had possessed a clear conception of Christianity as it now exists, and if he had foreseen distinctly the sects, the controversies, the persecutions, and the wars, of which it has been the source, he would have defined its doctrines and discipline with care. He would have shown that he foresaw the work that was to be done in his name. He would have written his sacred book, or would have provided for its writing and authentication. He would have prepared a summary statement of his creed. He would have ordained priests, defined their jurisdiction, and provided for the transmission of their offices to a line of successors. If he had wanted bishops

to rule over priests, and a pope to rule over bishops, he would have said so. He would have defined baptism, ordination, sacrament, redemption,transubstantiation, purgatory, and immaculate conception, if he had wished his followers to accept them. He would have said something about the worship of images, the adoration of saints, and the persecution of heretics. He would have taken care that Paul and Peter, Arius and Athanasius, Huss and Wycliffe, Luther and Calvin, Rome and Geneva, Russia and England, should not disagree about the meaning of the words and phrases attributed to him.

Of all religions Christianity has developed most slowly, has branched out into the most numerous sects and divergent creeds, has produced the largest controversial literature, has caused the greatest amount of systematic sacerdotal misrepresentation and forgery, and has provoked the most malignant persecutions and the most destructive ecclesiastical wars. The warfare which its priests have made continuously on science for the last three hundred years is one of the most discreditable features in its history.

SEC. 534. Peter's Address.—Soon after the crucifixion, the eleven apostles made their permanent residence in Jerusalem under an explicit command from Jesus that they should not depart until after the fulfillment of the promise of the restoration of the kingdom of God.1 This command was not accompanied by any explanation of how long they should have to wait, or any precise instruction of what they should do in the meantime.

Acts contains several speeches which purport to be reported literally, but all are presumably the productions of the historian. Not one of them is worthy of the occasion to which it is attributed. The addresses ascribed

to Peter are specially inappropriate. The meeting at Pentecost, about two months after the crucifixion, gave him an opportunity of explaining the main principles of the new faith to the Jews who had collected to hear him; and he was stimulated by the excitement of the disciples, among whom appeared "cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance." Peter said: "Ye men of Judea and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you and hearken to my words. For these [disciples who were speaking with tongues] are not drunken, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. But this is that which was spoken of by the prophet Joel: 'And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; and on My servants and on My handmaidens I will pour out in those days of My Spirit; and they shall prophesy; and I will show wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath; blood and fire and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come; and it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.'

"Ye men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know; him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and

slain; whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death; because it was not possible that he should be holden of it. For David speaketh concerning him: ‘I foresaw the Lord always before my face; for He is on my right hand, that I should not be moved; therefore, did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover, also my flesh shall rest in hope; because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine holy one to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me. the ways of life; Thou shalt make me full of joy with Thy countenance.' Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, He would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; he, seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we are witnesses. Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. For David is not ascended into the heavens; but he saith himself, The Lord said unto My Lord, 'Sit thou on My right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool.' Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ.""

This speech of Peter, which is here copied in full, gives no idea of Christianity, of the establishment of a new religion, of an atonement, of an incarnation, of salvation by faith, of the abrogation of the old law, of the relation of

the self-sacrifice of Jesus to the son of Adam, or of any other main point that an intelligent Jew might want to know from a Christian preacher when Christianity was preached for the first time in Jerusalem.

SEC. 535. The Apostles.-The history of the Christian church is brought down in Acts to about the year 62 A. D.; but after the first chapter, that book mentions none of the twelve apostles, save Peter, John, and James; and does not say that any apostle made converts among the Gentiles, that any apostle made his residence out of Jerusalem, or that any apostle taught that all Christians were freed from the ceremonial law of Moses. The author of Acts nowhere gives the title of apostle to tions the fact that he assumed the title.

Paul or men

As the destruction of Jerusalem in the VIth century B. C. greatly facilitated the establishment and enforcement of the religion of Jehovah among the Jews, so the destruction of the same city in 70 A. D. greatly facilitated the growth of Christianity. If the Jewish capital had remained prosperous, the Christians, after the close of the apostolic period, would have been impelled to go to the successors of the twelve whom Jesus had chosen, for the books and traditions which the church should accept as its guides; and as those books and traditions were hostile to Paul, his influence would have suffered. But the destruction of the city, the dispersion and impoverishment of its people, left its Christians without power to resist the march of Pauline ideas; and by the time that Jerusalem had regained importance as a city, the Pauline character of Christianity had been fixed permanently. The Christians in Judea were divided into two classes, the Nazarenes and the Ebionites, neither in full accord with the Pauline or Catholic Christians. The Nazarenes said