CHAP. II.

MARK, BISHOP OF JERUSALEM.

421

not to reassert its ancient dominion. The sacerdotal and the sectarian spirit had an equal tendency to draw a wider or a more narrow line of demarcation around that which, in Jewish language, they pronounced to be the "Israel of God; and to substitute some other criterion of Christianity for that exquisite perfection of piety, that sublimity of virtue, in disposition, in thought, and in act, which was the one true test of Christian excellence.

In Palestine, as the external conflict with Judaism was longest and most violent, so the internal influence of the old religion was latest obliterated. But when this separation at length took place, it was even more complete and decided than in any other countries. In Jerusalem, the Christians were perhaps still called, and submitted to be called, Nazarenes, while the appellation which had been assumed at Antioch was their common designation in all other parts of the world. The Christian community of Jerusalem, which had taken refuge at Pella, bore with them their unabated reverence for the Law. But insensibly the power of that reverence decayed; and on the foundation of the new colony of Elia, by the Emperor Hadrian, after the defeat of Barchochab, and the second total demolition of the city, the larger part having nominated a man of Gentile birth, Marcus, as their bishop, settled in the Mark, bishop New City, and thus proclaimed their final and of Jerusalem. total separation from their Jewish ancestors. For not only must they have disclaimed all Jewish connexion, to be permitted to take up their residence in the new colony, the very approach to which was watched by Roman outposts, and prohibited to every Jew under the

Euseb., H. E. iv. 6. Hieronym., Epist. ad Hedybiam, Quæst. 8.

422

THE COMMUNITY AT PELLA.

BOCK IL

severest penalties, but even the old Jewish feelings must have been utterly extinct. For what Jew, even if he had passed under the image of a swine which was erected in mockery over the Bethlehem Gate, would not have shrunk in horror at beholding the Hill of Moriah polluted by a Pagan temple, and the worship of heathen deities profaning by their reeking incense, and their idolatrous sacrifices, the site of the Holy of Holies? The Christian, absorbed in deeper veneration for the soil which had been hallowed by his Redeemer's footsteps and was associated with his mysterious death and resurrection, was indifferent to the daily infringement of the Mosaic Law, which God himself had annulled by the substitution of the Christian faith, or to the desecration of the site of that Temple which God had visibly abandoned.

The rest of the Judeo-Christian community at Pella, and in its neighbourhood, sank into an obscure sect, distinguished by their obstinate rejection of the writings. of St. Paul, and by their own Gospel, most probably the original Hebrew of St. Matthew. But the language, as well as the tenets of the Jews, were either proscribed by the Christians, as they still farther receded from Judaism, or fell into disuse;" and whatever writings they possessed, whether originals or copies in the vernacular dialect of Palestine, of the genuine Apostolic books, or compilations of their own, entirely perished, so that it is difficult, from the brief notices which are extant, to make out their real nature and character.

In Palestine, as elsewhere, the Jew and the Christian were no longer confounded with each other, but consti

Sulpicius Severus, H. E. Mosheim, de Reh, Christ. ante Constant. Le Clerc, Hist. Ecclesiastica.

CHAP. II.

CHRISTIANS IN HADRIAN'S NEW CITY. 423

tuted two totally different and implacably hostile races. The Roman government began to discriminate between them, as clearly appears from the permission to the Christians to reside in Hadrian's New City, on the site of Jerusalem, which was interdicted to the Jews. Mutual hatred was increased by mutual alienation; the Jew who had lost the power of persecuting, lent himself as a willing instrument to the heathen persecutor against those whom he still considered as apostates from his religion. The less enlightened Christian added to the contempt of all the Roman world for the Jew a principle of deeper hostility. The language of Tertullian is that of triumph, rather than of commiseration for the degraded state of the Jew. Strong jealousy of the pomp and power assumed by the Patriarch of Tiberias may be traced in the vivid description of Origen. No sufferings could too profoundly debase, no pride could become those, who shared in the hereditary guilt of the crucifixion of Jesus.

Dispersi, palabundi, et cœli et soli | vestigio salutare conceditur. Lib. cont. sui extorres vagantur per orbem, sine Judæos, 15. nomine, sine Deo rege, quibus nec P Origen, Epist. ad Africanum. advenarum jure terram patriam saltem | Hist. of Jews, ii, 465.

424

CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.

Book II

between Ju

daism and

CHAPTER III.

Christianity and Paganism.

THE Conflict of Christianity with Judaism was a civil Relationship war; that with Paganism, the invasion and conquest of a foreign territory. In the former Christianity. case it was the declared design of the innova tion to perfect the established constitution on its primary principles; to expand the yet undeveloped system, according to the original views of the Divine Legislator; in the latter it contemplated the total subversion of the existing order of things, a reconstruction of the whole moral and religious being of mankind. With the Jew, the abolition of the Temple service, and the abrogation of the Mosaic Law, were indispensable to the perfect establishment of Christianity. The first was left to be accomplished by the frantic turbulence of the people, and the remorseless vengeance of Rome. Yet, after all, the Temple service maintained its more profound and indelible influence only over the Jew of Palestine; its hold upon the vast numbers which were settled in all parts of the world was that of remote, occasional, traditionary reverence. With the foreign Jew, the service of the synagogue was his religion; and the synagogue, without any violent change, was transformed into a Christian church. The same Almighty God, to whom it was primarily dedicated, maintained his place: and the sole difference was, that He was worshipped through the mediation of the crucified Jesus of Nazareth. With

CHAP. III.

THEIR DIRECT OPPOSITION.

425

the Pagan, the whole of his religious observances fell under the unsparing proscription. Every one of the countless temples and shrines, and sacred groves, and hallowed fountains, were to be desecrated by the abhorrent feelings of those who looked back with shame and contempt upon their old idolatries. Every image, from the living work of Phidias or Praxiteles, to the rude and shapeless Hermes or Terminus, was to become an unmeaning mass of wood or stone. In every city, town, or even village, there was a contest to be maintained, not merely against the general system of Polytheism, but against the local and tutelary deity of the place. Every public spectacle, every procession, every civil or military duty, was a religious ceremonial. Though later, when Christianity was in the ascendant, it might expel the deities of Paganism from some of the splendid temples, and convert them to its own use; though insensibly many of the usages of the Heathen worship crept into the more gorgeous and imposing ceremonial of triumphant Christianity; though even many Direct oppoof the vulgar superstitions incorporated them- Christianity selves with the sacred Christian associations, to Paganism. all this reaction was long subsequent to the permanent establishment of the new religion. At first all was rigid and uncompromising hostility; doubts were entertained by the more scrupulous whether meat exposed to public sale in the market, but which might have formed part of a sacrifice, would not be dangerously polluting to the Christian. The Apostle, though anxious to correct this sensitive scrupulousness, touches on the point with the utmost caution and delicacy.a

The private life of the Jew was already, in part at

a 1 Corinth. x. 25-31.