t ecclesiastics call "Infidelity," and I call
Agnosticism. I believe that he was quite right in this conviction; but
while he chooses the one alternative, I choose the other; as he
rejects Protestantism on the ground of its incompatibility with
history, so, _a fortiori_, I conceive that Romanism ought to be
rejected; and that an impartial consideration of the evidence must
refuse the authority of Jesus to anything more than the Nazarenism of
James and Peter and John. And let it not be supposed that this is a
mere "infidel" perversion of the facts. No one has more openly and
clearly admitted the possibility that they may be fairly interpreted
in this way than Dr. Newman. If, he says, there are texts which seem
to show that Jesus contemplated the evangelisation of the heathen:

... Did not the Apostles hear our Lord? and what was _their_
impression from what they heard? Is it not certain that the
Apostles did not gather this truth from His teaching? (Tract
85, p. 63).

He said, "Preach the Gospel to every creature." These words
_need_ have only meant "Bring all men to Christianity
through Judaism." Make them Jews, that they may enjoy
Christ's privileges, which are lodged in Judaism; teach them
those rites and ceremonies, circumcision and the like, which
hitherto have been dead ordinances, and now are living; and
so the Apostles seem to have understood them (_ibid_. p.
65).

So far as Nazarenism differentiated itself from contemporary orthodox
Judaism, it seems to have tended towards a revival of the ethical and
religious spirit of the prophetic age, accompanied by the belief in
Jesus as the Messiah, and by various accretions which had grown round
Judaism subsequently to the exile. To these belong the doctrines of
the Resurrection, of the Last Judgment, of Heaven and Hell; of the
hierarchy of good angels; of Satan and the hierarchy of evil spirits.
And there is very strong ground for believing that all these
doctrines, at least in the shapes in which they were held by the
post-exilic Jews, were derived from Persian and Babylonian[97]
sources, and are essentially of heathen origin.

How far Jesus positively sanctioned all these indrainings of
circumjacent Paganism into Judaism; how far any one has a right to
declare, that the refusal to accept one or other of these doctrines,
as ascertained verities, comes to the same thing as contradicting
Jesus, it appears