VII 



AGNOSTICISM 231 



reverenced alike by Sadducee, Pharisee, and 

 Nazarene? At the famous conference which, 

 according to the Acts, took place at Jerusalem, 

 does not James declare that " myriads " of Jews, 

 who, by that time, had become Nazarenes, were 

 " all zealous for the Law " ? Was not the name 

 of " Christian " first used to denote the converts to 

 the doctrine promulgated by Paul and Barnabas at 

 Antioch ? Does the subsequent history of Chris- 

 tianity leave any doubt that, from this time forth, 

 the " little rift within the lute " caused by the new 

 teaching, developed, if not inaugurated, at Antioch, 

 grew wider and wider, until the two types of doc- 

 trine irreconcilably diverged ? Did not the primi- 

 tive Nazarenism, or Ebionism, develop into the 

 Nazarenism, and Ebionism, and Elkasaitism of 

 later ages, and finally die out in obscurity and 

 condemnation, as damnable heresy ; while the 

 younger doctrine throve and pushed out its shoots 

 into that endless variety of sects, of which the three 

 strongest survivors are the Roman and Greek 

 Churches and modern Protestantism ? 



Singular state of things ! If I were to profess 

 the doctrine which was held by "James, the 

 brother of the Lord," and by every one of the 

 " myriads " of his followers and co-religionists in 

 Jerusalem up to twenty or thirty years after the 

 Crucifixion (and one knows not how much later at 

 Pella), I should be condemned, with unanimity, as 

 an ebionising heretic by the Roman, Greek, and 



