broke out between the Petrine party and Paul.
Nevertheless, though Jesus may never have definitely pronounced upon
this point, it will hardly be denied that his teaching, even as reported
in the first gospel, is in its utter condemnation of formalism far more
closely allied to the Pauline than to the Petrine doctrines. In his
hands Mosaism became spiritualized until it really lost its identity,
and was transformed into a code fit for the whole Roman world. And we do
not doubt that if any one had asked Jesus whether circumcision were an
essential prerequisite for admission to the Messianic kingdom, he would
have given the same answer which Paul afterwards gave. We agree with
Zeller and Strauss that, "as Luther was a more liberal spirit than
the Lutheran divines of the succeeding generation, and Sokrates a more
profound thinker than Xenophon or Antisthenes, so also Jesus must
be credited with having raised himself far higher above the narrow
prejudices of his nation than those of his disciples who could scarcely
understand the spread of Christianity among the heathen when it had
become an accomplished fact."

January, 1870.

IV. THE CHRIST OF DOGMA. [22]

[22] Saint-Paul, par Ernest Renan. Paris, 1869.

Histoire du Dogme de la Divinite de Jesus-Christ, par Albert Reville.
Paris, 1869.

The End of the World and the Day of Judgment. Two Discourses by the Rev.
W. R. Alger. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1870.

The meagreness of our information concerning the historic career of
Jesus stands in striking contrast with the mass of information which
lies within our reach concerning the primitive character of Christologic
speculation. First we have the four epistles of Paul, written from
twenty to thirty years after the crucifixion, which, although they tell
us next to nothing about what Jesus did, nevertheless give us very
plain information as to the impression which he made. Then we have the
Apocalypse, written by John, A. D. 68, which exhibits the Messianic
theory entertained by the earliest disciples. Next we have the epistles
to the Hebrews, Philippians, Colossians, and Ephesians, besides the four
gospels, constituting altogether a connected chain of testimony to the
progress of Christian doctrine from the destruction of Jerusalem to the
time of the Quartodeciman controversy (A. D. 70-170). Finally, there is
the vast collection of apocryphal, heretical, and patristic literature,
from the writings of Ju