ounger 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 by our modern "pillars" that one of the chief
features of the work of Jesus was the instauration of Religion by the
abolition of what our sticklers for articles and liturgies, with,
unconscious humour, call the narrow restrictions of the Law. Yet, if
James knew this, how could the bitter controversy with Paul have
arisen; and why did not one or the other side quote any of the various
sayings of Jesus, recorded in the Gospels, which directly bear on the
question--sometimes, apparently, in opposite directions?

So, if I am asked to call myself an "infidel," I reply: To what
doctrine do you ask me to be faithful? Is it that contained in the
Nicene and the Athanasian Creeds? My firm belief is that the
Nazarenes, say of the year 40, headed by James, would have stopped
their ears and thought worthy of stoning the audacious man who
propounded it to them. Is it contained in the so-called Apostle's