ed as a Judaism of a
second order, in which Jewish and Greek elements had been united in a
peculiar mixture. (2) The conception of the Old Testament, as we find it
even in the earliest Gentile Christian teachers, the method of
spiritualising it, etc., agrees in the most surprising way with the
methods which were used by the Alexandrian Jews. (3) There are Christian
documents in no small number and of unknown origin, which completely
agree in plan, in form and contents with Graeco-Jewish writings of the
Diaspora, as for example, the Christian Sibylline Oracles, and the
pseudo-Justinian treatise, "de Monarchia." There are numerous tractates
of which it is impossible to say with certainty whether they are of
Jewish or of Christian origin.

The Alexandrian and non-Palestinian Judaism is still Judaism. As the
Gospel seized and moved the whole of Judaism, it must also have been
operative in the non Palestinian Judaism. But that already foreshadowed
the transition of the Gospel to the non-Jewish Greek region, and the
fate which it was to experience there. For that non-Palestinian Judaism
formed the bridge between the Jewish Church and the Roman Empire,
together with its culture.[55] The Gospel passed into the world chiefly
by this bridge. Paul indeed had a large share in this, but his own
Churches did not understand the way he led them, and were not able on
looking back to find it.[56] He indeed became a Greek to the Greeks, and
even began the undertaking of placing the treasures of Greek knowledge
at the service of the Gospel. But the knowledge of Christ crucified, to
which he subordinated all other knowledge as only of preparatory value,
had nothing in common with Greek philosophy, while the idea of
justification and the doctrine of the Spirit (Rom. VIII), which together
formed the peculiar contents of his Christianity, were irreconcilable
with the moralism and the religious ideals of Hellenism. But the great
mass of the earliest Gentile Christians became Christians because they
perceived in the Gospel the sure tidings of the benefits and obligations
which they had already sought in the fusion of Jewish and Greek
elements. It is only by discerning this that we can grasp the
preparation and genesis of the Catholic Church and its dogma.

From the foregoing statements it appears that there fall to be
considered as presuppositions of the origin of the Catholic Apostolic
doctrine of faith, the following topics, though of unequal