e course of a century, Pauline
influences had a large share in driving primitive Nazarenism from
being the very heart of the new faith into the position of scouted
error; and the spirit of Paul's doctrine continued its work of
driving Christianity farther and farther away from Judaism, until
"meats offered to idols" might be eaten without scruple, while the
Nazarene methods of observing even the Sabbath, or the Passover, were
branded with the mark of Judaising heresy.

But if the primitive Nazarenes of whom the Acts speak were orthodox
Jews, what sort of probability can there be that Jesus was anything
else? How can he have founded the universal religion which was not
heard of till twenty years after his death?[80] That Jesus possessed,
in a rare degree, the gift of attaching men to his person and to his
fortunes; that he was the author of many a striking saying, and the
advocate of equity, of love, and of humility; that he may have
disregarded the subtleties of the bigots for legal observance, and
appealed rather to those noble conceptions of religion which
constituted the pith and kernel of the teaching of the great prophets
of his nation seven hundred years earlier; and that, in the last
scenes of his career, he may have embodied the ideal sufferer of
Isaiah, may be, as I think it is, extremely probable. But all this
involves not a step beyond the borders of orthodox Judaism. Again,
who is to say whether Jesus proclaimed himself the veritable Messiah,
expected by his nation since the appearance of the pseudoprophetic
work of Daniel, a century and a half before his time; or whether the
enthusiasm of his followers gradually forced him to assume that
position?

But one thing is quite certain: if that belief in the speedy second
coming of the Messiah which was shared by all parties in the primitive
Church, whether Nazarene or Pauline; which Jesus is made to prophesy,
over and over again, in the Synoptic gospels; and which dominated the
life of Christians during the first century after the crucifixion;--if
he believed and taught that, then assuredly he was under an illusion,
and he is responsible for that which the mere effluxion of time has
demonstrated to be a prodigious error.

When I ventured to doubt "whether any Protestant theologian who has a
reputation to lose will say that he believes the Gadarene story," it
appears that I reckoned without Dr. Wace, who, referring to this
passage in my paper, says:--