230 GREEK ELEMENTS. 



at Jerusalem, and a compromise was arranged to the 

 effect that pagan converts should not be subjected to 

 the rite of circumcision, but that they should abstain 

 from pork and oysters, and should eat no animals 

 which had not been killed by the knife. But the com- 

 promise did not last. The church diverged in discipline 

 and dogma more and more widely from its ancient form, 

 •till in the second century the Christians of Judaea, who 

 had faithfully followed the customs and tenets of the 

 twelve apostles, were informed that they were heretics. 

 During that interval a new religion had arisen. 

 Christianity had conquered paganism, and paganism 

 had corrupted Christianity. The legends which be- 

 longed to Osiris and Apollo had been applied to the 

 life of Jesus. The single Deity of the Jews had been 

 exchanged for the Trinity, which the Egyptians had 

 invented, and which Plato had idealised into a philo- 

 sophic system. The man who had said " Why callest 

 thou me good ? there is none good but one, that 

 is God," had now himself been made a god, or the 

 third part of one. The Hebrew element, however, 

 had not been entirely cast off. With some little in- 

 consistency the Jewish sacred books were said to be 

 inspired, and nearly all the injunctions contained in 

 them were disobeyed. It was heresy to deny that the 

 Jews were the chosen people ; and it was heresy to 

 assert that the Jews would be saved. 



The Christian religion was at first spread by Jews, 

 who, either as missionaries or in the course of their 

 ordinary avocations, made the circuit of the Medi- 

 terranean world. In all large towns there was a 

 Ghetto, or Jews' quarter, in which the traveller was 

 received by the people of his own race. There was 

 no regular clergy among the Jews, and it was their 





