aps some confusion of homonyms), practised a
similar asceticism.[4] Afterward, toward the year 80, Baptism was in
strife with Christianity, especially in Asia Minor. John the
evangelist appears to combat it in an indirect manner.[5] One of the
Sibylline[6] poems seems to proceed from this school. As to the sects
of Hemero-baptists, Baptists, and Elchasaites (_Sabiens Mogtasila_ of
the Arabian writers[7]), who, in the second century, filled Syria,
Palestine and Babylonia, and whose representatives still exist in our
days among the Mendaites, called "Christians of St. John;" they have
the same origin as the movement of John the Baptist, rather than an
authentic descent from John. The true school of the latter, partly
mixed with Christianity, became a small Christian heresy, and died out
in obscurity. John had foreseen distinctly the destiny of the two
schools. If he had yielded to a mean rivalry, he would to-day have
been forgotten in the crowd of sectaries of his time. By his
self-abnegation he has attained a glorious and unique position in the
religious pantheon of humanity.

[Footnote 1: _Acts_ xviii. 25, xix. 1-5. Cf. Epiph., _Adv. Haer._, xxx.
16.]

[Footnote 2: _Vita_, 2.]

[Footnote 3: Would this be the Bounai who is reckoned by the Talmud
(Bab., _Sanhedrim_, 43 _a_) amongst the disciples of Jesus?]

[Footnote 4: Hegesippus, in Eusebius, _H.E._, ii. 23.]

[Footnote 5: Gospel, i. 26, 33, iv. 2; 1st Epistle, v. 6. Cf. _Acts_
x. 47.]

[Footnote 6: Book iv. See especially v. 157, and following.]

[Footnote 7: _Sabiens_ is the Aramean equivalent of the word
"Baptists." _Mogtasila_ has the same meaning in Arabic.]

CHAPTER XIII.

FIRST ATTEMPTS ON JERUSALEM.

Jesus, almost every year, went to Jerusalem for the feast of the
passover. The details of these journeys are little known, for the
synoptics do not speak of them,[1] and the notes of the fourth Gospel
are very confused on this point.[2] It was, it appears, in the year
31, and certainly after the death of John, that the most important of
the visits of Jesus to Jerusalem took place. Many of the disciples
followed him. Although Jesus attached from that time little value to
the pilgrimage, he conformed himself to it in order not to wound
Jewish opinion, with which he had not yet broken. These journeys,
moreover, were essential to his design; for he felt already that in
order to play a leading part, he must go from Galilee, and attack
Judaism in its