466 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



he was quite right in this conviction ; hut while he chooses the 

 one alternative,' I choose the other ; as he rejects Protestantism on 

 the ground of its incompatibility with history, so, a fortiori, I con- 

 ceive that Romanism ought to be rejected, and that an impartial 

 consideration of the evidence must refuse the authority of Jesus 

 to anything more than the Nazarenism of James and Peter and 

 John. And let it not be supposed that this is a mere " infidel " 

 perversion of the facts. No one has more openly and clearly ad- 

 mitted the possibility that they may be fairly interpreted in this 

 way than Dr. Newman. If, he says, there are texts which seem to 

 show that Jesus contemplated the evangelization of the heathen : 



. . . Did not the apostles hear oar Lord? and what was their impression 

 from what they heard? Is it not certain that the apostles did not gather this 

 truth from his teaching? (" Tract 85," p. 63.) 



He said, " Preach the gospel to every creature." These words need have only 

 meant " Bring all men to Christianity through Judaism." Make them Jews, that 

 they may enjoy Christ's privileges which are lodged in Judaism ; teach them those 

 rites and ceremonies, circumcision and the like, which hitherto have been dead or- 

 dinances, and now are living ; and so the apostles seem to have understood them 

 (Ibid., p. 65). 



So far as Nazarenism differentiated itself from contemporary 

 orthodox Judaism, it seems to have tended toward a revival of the 

 ethical and religious spirit of the prophetic age, accompanied by 

 the belief in Jesus as the Messiah, and by various accretions which 

 had grown round Judaism subsequently to the exile. To these 

 belong the doctrines of the resurrection, of the last judgment, of 

 heaven and hell ; of the hierarchy of good angels ; of Satan and 

 the hierarchy of evil spirits. And there is very strong ground for 

 believing that all these doctrines, at least in the shapes in which 

 they were held by the post-exilic Jews, were derived from Persian 

 and Babylonian * sources, and are essentially of heathen origin. 



How far Jesus positively sanctioned all these indrainings of 

 circumjacent paganism into Judaism ; how far any one has a right 

 to say that the refusal to accept one or other of these doctrines as 

 ascertained verities comes to the same thing as contradicting 

 Jesus, it appears to me not easy to say. But it is hardly less diffi- 

 cult to conceive that he could have distinctly negatived any of 

 them ; and, more especially, that demonology which has been 

 accepted by the Christian churches in every age and under all 

 their mutual antagonisms. But, I repeat my conviction that, 



* Dr. Newman faces this question with his customary ability. " Now, I own, I am not 

 at all solicitous to deny that this doctrine of an apostate angel and his hosts was gained 

 from Babylon : it might still be divine nevertheless. God who made the prophet's ass 

 speak, and thereby instructed the prophet, might instruct hi3 church by means of heathen 

 Babylon " (" Tract 85," p. 83). There seems to be no end to the apologetic burden that 

 Balaam's ass can carry. 



