i6o APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 



that very often we suffer all sorts of penalties in 

 consequence. And surely one must be something 

 ■worse than a born fool to pretend that such decision 

 under the pressure of the enigmas of life ought to 

 have the smallest influence in those judgments 

 which are made with due and sufficient deliberation. 



CCCLIII 



1. The Church founded by Jesus has not made its 

 way ; has not permeated the world — but did become 

 extinct in the country of its birth — as Nazarenism 

 and Ebionism. 



2. The Church that did make its vsray and coal- 

 esced with the State in the 4th century had no more 

 to do with the Church founded by Jesus than Ultra- 

 montanism has w^ith Quakerism. It is Alexandrian 

 Judaism and Neoplatonistic mystagogy, and as 

 much of the old idolatry and demonology as could 

 be got in under new or old names. 



3. Paul has said that the Law was schoolmaster 

 to Christ with more truth than he knew. Through- 

 out the Empire the synagogues had their cloud of 

 Gentile hangers-on — those who " feared God " — and 

 who were fully prepared to accept a Christianity, 

 which was merely an expurgated Judaism and the 

 belief in Jesus as the Messiah. 



4. The Christian "Sodalitia" were not merely 

 religious bodies, but friendly societies, burial 

 societies, and guilds. They hung together for all 

 purposes — the mob hated them as it now hates the 

 Jews in Eastern Europe, because they were more 

 frugal, more industrious, and lived better lives than 

 their neighbours, while they stuck together like 

 Scotchmen. 



If these things are so— and I appeal to your 

 knowledge of history that they are so— what has 

 the success of Christianity to do with the truth or 

 falsehood of the story of Jesus ? 



