a teacher at Damascus, was persecuted there, and narrowly escaped with his life. It was not till three years after his conversion that he went up to Jerusalem to spend some days with Peter. After this he preached in Syria and Cilicia, making Antioch his headquarters.

Now at Antioch, the capital of Syria, a singular series of events had taken place. Certain members of the religious party represented by Stephen had taken refuge in this city, and had preached Jesus to the Greeks, that is, the heathens there. Such a thing had never been dreamed of hitherto by the followers of Jesus, for they believed that the Messiah and his kingdom belonged exclusively and entirely to the Jews. But the freer conceptions of these refugees enabled them to baptize, without scruple, any heathens who showed sufficient interest and faith in their preaching. Amid such surroundings Paul began the labors and disciplined the powers that were to achieve such vast results.

VI.

So quickly and spontaneously had a division into two schools risen among the disciples of Jesus! The points they had in common were the belief that Jesus was the Messiah, and the hope that he would soon return to establish his kingdom. In other respects they differed widely. The older section was distinguished by unshaken fidelity to the Mosaic law and the Jewish religion as a whole, and a firm conviction that the Messianic kingdom was for Israel alone, and that all heathens who had not in whole or in part passed over to the Jewish religion would be excluded from it as "unclean." The headquarters of this party were at Jerusalem, and all the communities which had risen from time to time in the land of the Jews belonged to it. The persecution in which Stephen lost his life had driven away all dissentients, and a considerable number of Pharisees having joined the community, it was naturally confirmed in its strictly Jewish conceptions by the influence of its new adherents. The acknowledged leaders of this party were the Apostles, especially Peter and John; but even their influence was overshadowed by that of James, the brother of Jesus, who was not one of the twelve. He regulated his life on the strictest Pharisaic, or almost Essenic, principles, and accordingly stood high in the estimation of the Jews of Jerusalem.

The other school, whose pioneer was Stephen, and which was first established at Antioch under Barnabas, Paul, and other preachers, held that the external rites of Judaism were no longer binding; that heathens who turned from their mythological fancies to faith in the one true God and in Jesus as the ruler of God's kingdom were as well entitled to share the salvation to come as though they had been Jews. Faith was the one thing needful. This school extended principally among the Greeks, but the community at Antioch included other Jewish members besides its founders and guides, all of whom had relinquished their religious and national prejudices. These believers, who used the Greek word for Messiah, namely Christ, were called by their heathen fellowcitizens Christians; " and though the name was originally given by a misunderstanding and as a term of reproach, it was destined to survive as the name of the new religion. At first the mass of these Christians knew little or nothing of the difference of religious principle which separated them from the believers in Palestine, for they kept up no regular intercourse with Jerusalem. But as soon as the two schools, which we shall call the Jewish-Christian and the HeathenChristian, came into contact with each other they must inevitably clash.

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The catastrophe was not long delayed, for certain rigid Jewish-Christians came from Judæa and greatly disturbed the congregation at Antioch by assuring them that when Christ returned from heaven he would not accept a heathen on the strength of his faith, unless he had been incorporated into Judaism by circumcision and conformity with the other requirements of the Law. In support of this opinion they appealed to the Apostles as the only accredited witnesses of what Jesus really intended; and their teaching caused much uneasiness and dissension in the community at Antioch. Paul and Barnabas did their best to counteract the disturbing influences of this teaching, but found themselves unable to prevent or heal the dissensions it caused, and were finally compelled to go up to Jerusalem to consult the Apostles. They took Titus with them, a converted but uncircumcised heathen. At Jerusalem they specially sought out the heads of the community, James, Peter, and John. These three, though they could not quite admit that faith was all-sufficient in itself, and that the heathen need not submit to the Law or even to its main injunctions, yet recognized in the success of the Heathen-Christian mission a sign of God's approval, and

gave to Paul the right hand of fellowship. They determined not to oppose each other, but each to go his own way, - Paul and Barnabas to the Greeks, the Apostles of Jerusalem to the Jews. The only condition made was that a collection should be raised in the Heathen-Christian communities on behalf of the poor believers in Judæa.

Soon after Paul and Barnabas had returned to Antioch they received a visit from Peter. At first he associated in a perfectly free and brotherly spirit with the Heathen-Christians, but as soon as certain emissaries of James arrived at Antioch he suddenly reversed his line of conduct, separated himself from the believing heathens as though they were unclean, drew Barnabas and the other Jewish members of the congregation with him, and insisted on the Heathen-Christians submitting to the requirements of the Law. Paul, who stood altogether alone, opposed Peter and the Jewish fanaticism with all his might. He carried his point, but the gulf between the two parties was now wider than ever, in fact impassable. Not long afterwards Paul left Antioch, and, in company with Silas, Timotheus, and others, went on a missionary journey through Asia Minor. He visited and confirmed the communities already established, and founded many new ones, among which were some in the district of Galatia. After a time he passed over into Europe, and preached the Gospel at Philippi, Thessalonica, and elsewhere. He was almost everywhere persecuted and expelled, sometimes by heathens, but more frequently by Jews, till at last he settled for a time in Corinth, whence from time to time he visited various places in Achaia. After about a year and a half be was expelled from Corinth, and passed over to Ephesus, where he remained a considerable time, constantly making excursions through Asia Minor and to Macedonia and to Greece. He endured his manifold toils and difficulties, dangers and sufferings, with a zeal that nothing could daunt, and an unexampled energy. But his bitterest trial was the opposition he had to encounter from Jewish-Christians who came out from Judæa to stir up his heathen converts against him, and compel them to submit to the ordinances of the Law. They refused to recognize Paul as an Apostle, denounced his teachings as false doctrine, and even attacked his character. They succeeded but too well. In Galatia, at Corinth, and elsewhere they induced a great part of the Christians to fall away from him and he wrote letters from

Ephesus to Galatia and Corinth, intended chiefly to defend his personal character and his teaching, and to destroy the influence of his opponents, to whom he hardly yielded in bitterness.

In three years he had to leave Ephesus also. On this he passed through Macedonia, where he wrote his second letter to Corinth. Like its predecessor it was chiefly directed against the Jewish-Christian teachers, and soon afterwards he followed it to the capital of Achaia in person. Here he drow up his epistle to the Romans, in which he carefully expounded his doctrinal system. Meanwhile he had not forgotten his promise to make a collection for the believers at Jerusalem among the various communities he had established. Indeed, he had lately been making great efforts to collect a considerable sum of money, in the hope that this brotherly liberality on the part of the Heathen-Christians might close the breach between the two parties. Accordingly, he now set out from Corinth to the City of the Temple, taking the money he had collected with him. But when he reached Jerusalem his hopes were cruelly disappointed. In a tumult, stirred up against him by the Jews, he would have lost his life had not the commander of the Roman garrison interfered and snatched him out of the hands of the furious mob. To secure him from further danger he was sent under an armed escort to Cæsarea, where he was kept in confinement by the governor for two years; after which, fearing that he might be given up to the Jews, he availed himself of his privilege as a Roman citizen, and claimed to have his case investigated before the imperial court at Rome. On his journey he suffered shipwreck, but eventually reached Rome in safety. In the course of the two years that he spent in captivity at Rome he wrote a few more letters, among which are those to Philemon and to the Philippians, and was able in other ways to carry on his work to some extent. Even here, however, he was constantly thwarted by the Jews and the Jewish-Christians, until at last he closed his career by a martyr's death.

Paul was a great man, perhaps the greatest of all men except Jesus. At any rate, Christianity has to thank him more than any other for its existence. He was a restless worker, a dauntless champion of the principles he adopted, a bold and deep thinker. His lot was any thing but enviable. Bitterly hated, constantly and fiercely opposed by his antag onists, he was but little comprehended by his followers.

Hence his own converts were frequently unfaithful to his ideas and principles. While he was still living, the congregations at Antioch, in Galatia, and at Corinth among others fell away from him in great part, and went over to the Jewish-Christian party, and not long after his death the congregations at Ephesus and elsewhere followed the example. There was no lack of kindred spirits to take up his work and preach his gospel zealously enough, but the opposition to his school also continued after his death. Even his personal character was not spared when he was no more, but was pursued with obloquy and slander. Almost a century after his death a romance written against him was circulated in the community at Rome.

Meanwhile the course of events had necessarily changed the attitude of the two parties. As the number of HeathenChristians continually increased it became impossible any longer to question their right of citizenship in the Messianic kingdom, even without their passing over to Judaism. So the Jewish-Christians no longer required them to submit to circumcision and to all the regulations of the Mosaic Law. It had gradually become impossible to maintain such demands, and accordingly they were dropped, and the number of commandments which the Heathen-Christians were required to observe was reduced. And again, the devastation of the very centre of Jewish worship in A.D. 70 put an end to the sacrificial service and to many other sacred rites, and consequently many of the points of dispute between the two schools of Christians lost all practical interest. But the conflict over the principle itself, — whether faith alone was the indispensable condition of salvation, or whether it must be accompanied by the observance of certain forms and obedience to an external law, was still as hot as ever. The Heathen-Christians on their side, with the exception of some few extravagant Paulinists, could not deny the authority of the Apostles and the connection of their own religion with that of the Jews; and, especially when Paul was no longer on the stage, they showed a readiness to yield in some points, and insisted less vehemently on their liberty. Moreover there soon sprang up a middle party, which endeavored to bring about a reconciliation between the two sides by yielding something on either hand.

As is generally the case, the efforts of the middle party were to a certain extent successful. The struggle of the Apostolic age ended in union under the Universal (Catholic)