298 AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER VIII 



century, when the " sect of the Nazarenes " consti- 

 tuted the whole church founded by Jesus and the 

 apostles ; while, in the time of Justin, it lay mid- 

 way between the two. It is therefore a profound 

 mistake to imagine that the Judaeo-Christians 

 (Nazarenes and Ebionites) of later times were 

 heretical outgrowths from a primitive universalist 

 " Christianity." On the contrary, the universalist 

 " Christianity " is an outgrowth from the 

 primitive, purely Jewish, Nazarenism; which, 

 gradually eliminating all the ceremonial and 

 dietary parts of the Jewish law, has thrust aside 

 its parent, and all the intermediate stages of its 

 development, into the position of damnable 

 heresies. 



Such being the case, we are in a position to 

 form a safe judgment of the limits within which 

 the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth must have been 

 confined. Ecclesiastical authority would have us 

 believe that the words which are given at the end 

 of the first Gospel, " Go ye, therefore, and make 

 disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the 

 name of the Father and of the Son and of the 

 Holy Ghost," are part of the last commands of 

 Jesus, issued at the moment of his parting with 

 the eleven. If so, Peter and John must have 

 heard these words ; they are too plain to be mis- 

 understood ; and the occasion is too solemn for 

 them ever to be forgotten. Yet the " Acts " tells 

 us that Peter needed a vision to enable him so 



