290 AGNOSTICISM : A REJOINDER vin 



offered to idols whether they are Gnostic or not 

 (VII.) These last I have called " idolothytic " 

 Christians, because I cannot devise a better 

 name, not because it is strictly defensible etymo- 

 logically. 



At the present moment, I do not suppose there 

 is an English missionary in any heathen land who 

 would trouble himself whether the materials of his 

 dinner had been previously offered to idols or not. 

 On the other hand, I suppose there is no Protestant 

 sect within the pale of orthodoxy, to say nothing of 

 the Roman and Greek Churches, which would 

 hesitate to declare the practice of circumcision and 

 the observance of the Jewish Sabbath and dietary 

 rules, shockingly heretical. 



Modern Christianity has, in fact, not only shifted 

 far to the right of Justin's position, but it is of 

 much narrower compass. 



Justin 



Judceo-Christianity Modern Christianity Paganism 



k IL TIL iv. v. VL VIL viii. 



For, though it includes VII., and even, in saint 

 and relic worship, cuts a " monstrous cantle " out 

 of paganism, it excludes, not only all Judseo- 

 Christians, but all who doubt that such are 

 heretics. Ever since the thirteenth century, the 

 Inquisition would have cheerfully burned, and iu 

 Spain did abundantly burn, all persons who came 

 under the categories II., III. IV., V. And the 



