THE ARREST OF INQUIRY. 47 



themselves into groups for communion and worship. 

 " In the church of Jerusalem," says Selden in his 

 Table Talk (xiv), " the Christians were but another 

 sect of Jews that did believe the Messias was come." 

 From that sacred city there went forth preachers of 

 this simple doctrine through the lands where Greek- 

 speaking Jews, known as those of the Dispersion, 

 had been long settled. These formed a very impor- 

 tant element in the Roman Empire, being scattered 

 from Asia Minor to Egypt, and thence in all the 

 lands washed by the Mediterranean. As their racial 

 isolation and national hopes made them the least 

 contented among the subject-peoples, a series of tol- 

 erant measures securing them certain privileges, sub- 

 ject to loyal behaviour, had been prudently granted 

 by their Roman inasters. The new teaching spread 

 from Antioch to Alexandria and Rome. But early 

 in the onward career of the movement a division 

 broke out among, the immediate disciples of Jesus 

 which ended in lasting rupture. A distinguished 

 convert had been won to the faith in the person of 

 the Apostle Paul. He is the real founder of Chris- 

 tianity as a more or less systematized creed, and all 

 the development of dogma which followed are iri- 

 tegral parts of the structure raised by him. He con- 

 verted it from a local religion into • a widespread 

 faith. This came about, at the start, through his de- 

 feat of the narrower section headed by Peter, who 

 would have compelled all non-Jewish converts to 

 submit to the rite of circumcision. 



