great advance towards freedom; as by it Paul protested against the Jewish monopoly of salvation, and asserted the power God to save whom He would, whether Jew or Gentile.

The theology of Paul was altogether too liberal to be acceptable to the early Church; while, on the other hand, the Gentile Christians rejected the Judaical teaching of St. James. At this juncture, the timid conservatism and vacillating spirit of Peter effected a compromise; which for a time quieted dispute, though, like all compromises, it soon failed to satisfy either party. The temporizing policy thus introduced continued to characterize the proceedings of the Church. Compromises were effected with Paganism as well as with Judaism; and the purity of Christ's doctrine, and the energetic protest of Paul, were alike forgotten. Meantime the religious world, particularly in the East, was agitated by the doctrines of Christianity, as understood and taught by St. John. His theology is more ideal and more free from the trammels of the law than that of the Judaists, more abstract than that of Stephen, more mystic than that of Paul. The writer of the fourth Gospel was evidently imbued with the mode of thought of the Gnostics; his style is characterized with their peculiar phraseology; and the frequent use of abstract terms gives to his records a dreamy and mystical tone, very acceptable to the Oriental mind. Christianity, in St. John's view, is eminently a message of love. The believer is saved through the example, the teaching, and the death of Christ; but, though the blood of Jesus is said to wash away sin, there is nothing in John's writings concerning a Christ punished for us, or satisfying divine justice in our stead.

Respecting the nature of Christ, three distinct theories were early introduced. Some said that the Holy Spirit had descended upon him at his baptism, and had never returned to heaven; others suggested that he was not the son of Joseph and Mary, but of Mary and the Holy Spirit; others, again, identified him with the Incarnate Word of the Gnostics. Matthew and Luke credit the story of the miraculous birth; John and Paul see in Jesus the pre-existent Word; but Paul, though evidently desirous to exalt the Son as high as possible, always makes him

subordinate to the Father.

The Church, finding all three

theories in the records of Christ's biographers, accepted them all and combined them, in spite of the declarations of Christ and the teachings of reason.

At the period of Christ's advent, the Jews were colonized in many parts of the Roman empire, especially in Rome itself and the neighboring cities. In thus mingling with the world, this peculiar people was obliged to put away somewhat of its exclusiveness; so that, when Paul began to preach at Rome, the Jews served as a connecting link between himself and the Pagans, and his word soon found access to all classes of Roman society. The Christian Church was soon established in Rome, and multitudes of Pagans professed Christianity. These converts could not divest themselves of the habits and associations of their former lives: consequently, Christianity became more and more corrupt as its temporal power increased, and the modifying influences of Paganism took more definite form. The Roman spirit, essentially juridical, local, and textual, could not fail to cramp the thought of Christianity; while many rites and customs-such as the tapers, lighted lamps, incense, and vases of consecrated water, which are so prominent a feature in the services of the Catholic Church—are purely Pagan, borrowed, almost without alteration, from the polytheistic worship. The same is true of the introduction of images, many of which would serve equally well for both religions: indeed, in some of these groups, the gods of fable were actually mingled with the objects of Christian faith. The monotheistic feeling of the Christianized Jews would not allow them to represent God by any visible form; and thus the custom obtained of placing an image of Jesus wherever in Pagan temples would have stood the image of a god. The idea of the miraculous character of certain images was borrowed from Paganism, as was also the nimbus, or aureola, which the sacred personages of the Catholic Church still wear. Next followed the worship of the martyrs and of objects which had belonged to them, in imitation of the devotion of the Pagans to the remains of their heroes. But it was not in outward adornment alone that the change consisted. The services of the Church

came by degrees to partake of the nature of the Pagan mysteries, both in their exclusiveness and in their striving for dramatic effect. Thus Christians were regarded as the initiated, the candidates as catechumens, and the Pagans as the populace forbidden to enter the sacred places. The simple rite of communion was made a secret act, and gradually the idea of sacrifice was attached to its commemoration.

With the conversion of Constantine, Christianity at once became the favored religion of the court and the empire; and the political organization of the empire became the model of that of the Church. Rome as yet had no superiority over the other patriarchal bishoprics; but, on the establishment of the seat of empire at Byzantium, Constantine made of the patriarch of Rome the most important personage of the Eternal City. The prestige of Rome was so great, that the man who was first there would have little difficulty in maintaining his supremacy elsewhere. Besides, the East had four patriarchs, while the West had only one; and, through all divisions of the empire, the Western world continued to be ruled by a single spiritual head. The title of pope (papa), meaning "father," often given to bishops, was gradually monopolized by those of Rome. The encroachments of the papacy were necessarily slow, being, for a long time, opposed by the Western churches, while its claims have never been acknowledged in the East.

Meantime the Church became corrupted through its prosperity. Many of the clergy led scandalous lives, and disorders increased, until at last a re-action took place, unfortunately as extremes as the abuses against which it protested. To the religion of the court and the world, was opposed a religion hostile to society, alien to the family, the religion of monks and nuns. Anchorites and cœnobites soon became numerous. The zeal for celibacy caused new honors to be paid to the mother of Christ, who was held to have always remained a virgin; and, in the fifth century, it was declared, by authority of an ecclesiastical council, that she was the "mother of God," in refutation of the heresy of Nestorius, who had taught the separation of the two natures in Christ, maintaining that Mary was the mother of the Christ-man, but not of the Christ-God.

After this declaration, it was easy to recognize her as a divinity in her own right; especially for the Pagans, who were accustomed to acknowledge the claims of goddesses, and who saw in the numerous pictures of the Virgin and child only a slight variation from the favorite Egyptian representation of Isis and her son Horus. Arianism was a last, illogical, and intellectually feeble, attempt to maintain God above all, even above Christ, the last effort of monotheistic feeling against the polytheistic tendency of the age.

The division of the Greek and Roman Churches was the necessary result of long conflicting influences. The Eastern Church had always followed the mystical theology of John: the Roman Church adopted the formal, Judaistic theology of Peter, with such zeal, that he was early declared to have been its founder, and to have suffered persccution and death within the Eternal City, although historical evidence all goes to prove that he never even saw Rome; while Paul, whose teaching was rejected by its citizens, preached there for years, and finally died a martyr within its walls. His bold, free thought, though buried under the corruptions of primitive times, came to life and flourished in full vigor at the Reformation; and its purest truth blossoms afresh with every new struggle for liberty of conscience and elevation of human character.

Even this brief survey of the history of the Church, during the first four centuries after the death of Christ, is enough to show that his professed followers had wandered far from his pure standard of feeling and action; and to convey the warning lesson, that in proportion to the degree in which human laws and rites and creeds are allowed to intrude upon the sacred relations of the soul to God, will be the degeneracy of worship and the loss of spiritual communion between man and his Heavenly Father. And as history has proved, that the infinite variety of character and perception among individuals is proof against the restrictions of party or dogma, would it not be wisdom on the part of each existing church to relax its hold upon the material forms of its worship and the defined doctrines of its creed; and place more reliance upon that vital principle of Christianity, which still asserts itself in the midst

of error, and which is destined finally to triumph over all attempts to enthrall its glorious career?

The above condensed sketch may serve to show something of the topics and course of argument in M. Coquerel's remarkable work; but it can give no adequate idea of the harmony, consistency, and earnestness with which the subject is developed. It is to be hoped that this little book will be extensively circulated; for no more attractive and persuasive antidote to superstition and ignorance in religious matters has ever been offered to the public.

ART. VII.-THE INCARNATION.

Ecce Deus. Essays on the Life and Doctrine of Jesus Christ, with Controversial Notes on " Ecce Homo." Boston: Roberts Brothers.

WE have not seen the English edition of this interesting book, and, from reading the American reprint, should have concluded that it was really written in this country, by some person in our Unitarian ranks with a Swedenborgian philosophy, and with a studious desire to conceal his ecclesiastical connections. It has too many Americanisms in it to be English in origin. The word " transpire" is commonly used for "occur," a purely American colloquialism. "Collide" is another instance of steamboat English. We think, too, we notice an awkwardness in wearing the English dress, which a native would not have exhibited. Would an Englishman quote Macaulay as "Baron Macaulay?" Would he say, "from Britain to Africa"? — meaning from England. But these are mere surmises.

The book-which we do not propose to review, but merely incidentally to use as an introduction to our present theme — is worthy of careful reading. Its origin and purport will be at least as great a puzzle as "Ecce Homo" proved. It is not a whit more Orthodox in its general direction; and we see no