THE GHETTO. 231 



custom to allow, and even to invite the stranger to 

 preach in their synagogue. Doctrines were not strictly 

 defined, and they listened without anger, and perhaps 

 with some hope, to the statement, that Jesus of 

 Nazareth was the Messiah, and that he would shortly 

 return to establish his kingdom upon earth. But 

 when these Christians began to preach that the eating 

 of pork was not a deadly sin, and that God was better 

 pleased with a sprinkle than a slash, they were 

 speedily stigmatised as heretics, and all the Jewries in 

 the world were closed against them. 



Those strange religious and commercial communities, 

 those landless colonies which an Oriental people had 

 established all over the world, from the Rhone and the 

 Rhine to the Oxus and Jaxartes ; which corresponded 

 regularly among themselves, and whose members re- 

 cognised each other, wherever they might be and in 

 whatever garb, by the solemn phrase, Hear Israel, 

 there is one God ! afforded a model for the Christian 

 churches of the early days. The primitive Christians 

 did not, indeed, live together in one quarter, like the 

 Jews, but they gathered together for purposes of wor- 

 ship and administration in set places at appointed 

 times. They did not establish commercial relations 

 with the Christians in other towns, but they kept up 

 an active social correspondence, and hospitably enter- 

 tained the foreign brother who brought letters of in- 

 troduction as credentials of his creed. Travelling, 

 though not always free from danger, was unobstructed 

 in those days ; coasters sailed frequently from port to 

 port, and the large towns were connected by paved 

 roads with a posting-house at every six-mile stage. 

 All inn-keepers spoke Greek : it was not necessary to 

 learn Latin even in order to reside at Rome. 



