the personal friends of Jesus. James at Jerusalem adhered strictly to Judaism. The other apostles, so far as we know, did the same. The rest of the brethren there did the same. Paul was tolerated, and even cordially received, as the apostle of the Gentiles, but it does not appear that he had any following among the Jews. Had any of the original apostles followed him in his bold innovations, he would surely have mentioned the fact, as he has mentioned the partial adhesion of Peter. On the contrary, he seems in his epistles, when attacking the Judaic type of Christianity, to be arguing as much against them as against the unchristian Jews or the heathen.
Stronger evidence than mere inference is, however, obtainable on this point. The Jewish Christians, who had received their doctrines direct from the companions of Jesus, soon came to form a sect apart, and were known by the name of Ebionites. Of these men, Irenæus tells us that "they use the Gospel according to Matthew only, and repudiate the apostle Paul, maintaining that he was an apostate from the law." Moreover, "they practice circumcision, persevere in the observance of those customs which are enjoined by the law, and are so Judaic in their style of life, that they even adore Jerusalem as if it were the house of God" (Adv. Hær. i. 26). It was a strange fate that befell these unfortunate people, when, overwhelmed by the flood of heathenism that had swept into the Church, they were condemned as heretics. Yet there is no evidence that they had ever swerved from the doctrines of Jesus, or of the disciples who knew him in his life-time. Jesus himself had been circumcised, and he certainly never condemned the rite, or spoke of it as useless for the future. He was so Judaic in his style of life that he reverenced the temple at Jerusalam as "a house of prayer for all nations," and deemed it his special duty to purify it from what he regarded as pollution. But the torrent of progress swept past the Ebionites, and left them stranded on the shore.
Should the position here maintained with reference to the Judaic character of the early Christians be thought to require further confirmation, I should find it in the weighty words of a theologian who, while entirely Christian in his views, is also one of the highest authorities on the history of the Church. Nean-
