Collected Essays, Volume V: Science and Christian Tradition: EssaysHuxley, Thomas Henry
Religion
Collected Essays, Volume V: Science and Christian Tradition: Essays
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Agnosticism; Miracles; Religion and science
They therefore request that he should perform a certain public
religious act in the Temple, in order that
all shall know that there is no truth in the things whereof
they have been informed concerning thee; but that thou
thyself walkest orderly, keeping the law (_ibid_. 24).[77]
How far Paul could do what he is here requested to do, and which the
writer of the Acts goes on to say he did, with a clear conscience, if
he wrote the Epistles to the Galatians and Corinthians, I may leave
any candid reader of these epistles to decide. The point to which I
wish to direct attention is the declaration that the Jerusalem
Church, led by the brother of Jesus and by his personal disciples and
friends, twenty years and more after his death, consisted of strict
and zealous Jews.
Tertullus, the orator, caring very little about the internal
dissensions of the followers of Jesus, speaks of Paul as a "ringleader
of the sect of the Nazarenes" (Acts xxiv. 5), which must have affected
James much in the same way as it would have moved the Archbishop of
Canterbury, in George Fox's day, to hear the latter called a
"ringleader of the sect of Anglicans." In fact, "Nazarene" was, as is
well known, the distinctive appellation applied to Jesus; his
immediate followers were known as Nazarenes; while the congregation of
the disciples, and, later, of converts at Jerusalem--the Jerusalem
Church--was emphatically the "sect of the Nazarenes," no more, in
itself, to be regarded as anything outside Judaism than the sect of
the Sadducees, or that of the Essenes.[78] In fact, the tenets of both
the Sadducees and the Essenes diverged much more widely from the
Pharisaic standard of orthodoxy than Nazarenism did.
Let us consider the condition of affairs now (A.D. 50-60) in relation
to that which obtained in Justin's time, a century later. It is plain
that the Nazarenes--presided over by James, "the brother of the Lord,"
and comprising within their body all the twelve apostles--belonged to
Justin's second category of "Jews who observe the Law, believe Jesus
to be the Christ, but who insist on the observance of the Law by
Gentile converts," up till the time at which the controversy reported
by Paul arose. They then, according to Paul, simply allowed him to
form his congregations of non-legal Gentile converts at Antioch and
elsewhere; and it would seem that it was to these converts, who would
come under Justin's fifth category, that the title of "Christian" was
first applied. If any of these Christians had acted upon the more than
half-permission given by Paul, and had eaten meats offered to idols,
they would have belonged to Justin's seventh category.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account