VIII THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY SG7 



by laying the foundations of a new theology, while 

 equipping the defenders of it with the subtlest 

 of all weapons of offence and defence, and with an 

 inexhaustible store of sophistical arguments of the 

 most plausible aspect. 



The question of the real bearing upon theology 

 of the influence exerted by the teaching of Philo's 

 contemporary, Jesus of Nazareth, is one upon 

 which it is riot germane to my present purpose to 

 enter. I take it simply as an unquestionable fact 

 that his immediate disciples, known to their 

 countrymen as "Nazarenes," were regarded as, 

 and considered themselves to be, perfectly orthodox 

 Jews, belonging to the puritanic or pharisaic 

 section of their people, and differing from the rest 

 only in their belief that the Messiah had already 

 come. Christianity, it is said, first became clearly 

 differentiated at Antioch, and it separated itself 

 from orthodox Judaism by denying the obligation 

 of the rite of circumcision and of the food pro- 

 hibitions, prescribed by the law. Henceforward 

 theology became relatively stationary among the 

 Jews, 1 and the history of its rapid progress in a 

 new course of evolution is the history of the 



1 I am not unaware of the existence of many and widely 

 divergent sects and schools among the Jews at all periods of 

 their history, since the dispersion. But I imagine that -orthodox 

 Judaism is now pretty much what it w r as in Philo's time ; while 

 Peter and Paul, if they could return to life, would certainly 

 have to learn the catechism of either the Roman, Greek, or 

 Anglican Churches, if they desired to be considered orthodox 

 Christians 



