Already in the Epistles the incompatibility of the original critical spirit with sectarian policy has become clear. Paul--if the first epistle to the Thessalonians be his--exhorts his converts to "prove all things, hold fast what is good"; [876] and by way of making out the Christist case against unpliable Jews he argues copiously in his own way; but as soon as there is a question of "another Jesus" [877] being set up, he is the sectarian fanatic pure and simple, and he no more thinks of applying the counsel of criticism to his dogma [878] than of acting on his prescription of love in controversy. "Reasonings" (logismous) are specially stigmatized: they must be "cast down." [879] The attitude towards slavery now becomes a positive fiat in its support; [880] and all political freethinking is superseded by a counsel of conformity. [881] The slight touch of rationalism in the Judaic epistle of James, where the principle of works is opposed to that of faith, is itself quashed by an anti-rational conception of works. [882] From a sect so taught, freethinking would tend to disappear. It certainly obtruded itself early, for we have the Pauline complaint [883] that "some among you say there is no rising from the dead"; but men of that way of thinking had no clear ground for belonging to the community, and would soon be preached out of it, leaving only so much of the spirit of criticism as produced heresies within the sphere of supernaturalism. § 3 When the new creed, spreading through the Empire, comes actively in contact with paganism, the rationalistic principle of anti-idolatry, still preserved by the Jewish impulse, comes into prominence; and insofar as they criticized pagan myths and pagan image-worship, the early Christians may be said to have rationalized. [884] Polytheists applied the term "atheistical" alike to them [885] and the Jews. [886] As soon as the cult was joined by lettered men, the primitive rationalism of Evêmeros was turned by them to account; and a series of Fathers, including Clement of Alexandria, Arnobius, Lactantius, and Augustine, pressed the case against the pagan creeds with an unflagging malice which, if exhibited by later rationalists towards their own creed, Christians would characterize in strong terms. But the practice of criticism towards other creeds was, with the religious as with the philosophical sects, no help to self-criticism. The attitude of the Christian mass towards pagan idols and the worship of the Emperor was rather one of frenzy [887] than of intellectual superiority; [888] and the Fathers never seem to have found a rationalistic discipline in their polemic against pagan beliefs. Where the unbelieving Lucian brightly banters, they taunt and asperse, in the temper of barbarians deriding the Gods of the enemy. None of them seems to realize the bearing against his own creed of the pagan argument that to die and to suffer is to give proof of non-deity. [889] In the end, the very image-worship which