t their chief, "James,
the brother of the Lord," reverenced alike by Sadducee, Pharisee, and
Nazarene? At the famous conference which, according to the Acts, took
place at Jerusalem, does not James declare that "myriads" of Jews, who
by that time, had become Nazarenes, were "all zealous for the Law"? Was
not the name of "Christian" first used to denote the converts to the
doctrine promulgated by Paul and Barnabas at Antioch? Does the
subsequent history of Christianity leave any doubt that, from this time
forth, the "little rift within the lute" caused by the new teaching,
developed, if not inaugurated, at Antioch, grew wider and wider, until
the two types of doctrine irreconcilably diverged? Did not the primitive
Nazarenism, or Ebionism, develop into the Nazarenism, and Ebionism, and
Elkasaitism of later ages, and finally die out in obscurity and
condemnation, as damnable heresy; while the younger doctrine throve and
pushed out its shoots into that endless variety of sects, of which the
three strongest survivors are the Roman and Greek Churches and modern
Protestantism?

Singular state of things! If I were to profess the doctrine which was
held by "James, the brother of the Lord," and by every one of the
"myriads" of his followers and co-religionists in Jerusalem up to twenty
or thirty years after the Crucifixion (and one knows not how much later
at Pella), I should be condemned with unanimity, as an ebionising
heretic by the Roman, Greek, and Protestant Churches! And, probably,
this hearty and unanimous condemnation of the creed, held by those who
were in the closest personal relation with their Lord, is almost the
only point upon which they would be cordially of one mind. On the other
hand, though I hardly dare imagine such a thing, I very much fear that
the "pillars" of the primitive Hierosolymitan Church would have
considered Dr. Wace an infidel. No one can read the famous second
chapter of Galatians and the book of Revelation without seeing how
narrow was even Paul's escape from a similar fate. And, if
ecclesiastical history is to be trusted, the thirty-nine articles, be
they right or wrong, diverge from the primitive doctrine of the
Nazarenes vastly more than even Pauline Christianity did.

But, further than this, I have great difficulty in assuring myself that
even James, "the brother of the Lord," and his "myriads" of Nazarenes,
properly represented the doctrines of their Master. For it is constantly
asserted