Tiele, in his Gifford Lectures delivered in 1895, remarks on the ridicule with which the learned Hellenists of his youth received the efforts of those whom they called the _comparativi_. See _Elements of the Science of Religion_, 1897, vol. I. p. 7. Footnote 4: No better proof can be given of the change in public opinion in such matters than the comparison of Gibbon’s words with regard to “the miraculous powers ascribed to the primitive Church” (_Decline and Fall_, Bury’s edition, vol. II. p. 2) and the way the subject is treated in the article “Wonders” in Cheyne’s _Encyclopedia Biblica_, 1903. Footnote 5: The definition is that of Ira W. Howerth, _International Journal of Ethics_, 1903, p. 205. Footnote 6: See Tiele, _op. cit._ vol. I. pp. 5 _sqq._ The controversies raging round Darwin’s theory when first put forward are well summarized by F. W. Hutton in his _Darwinism and Lamarckism_, 1899, _passim_. Cf. Delage and Goldsmith, _Les Thèoriesé de l’Évolution_, Paris, 1909, pp. 28, 29. Footnote 7: See Hutton, _op. cit._ p. 111. Footnote 8: Tiele, _op. cit._ vol. I. p. 11. Footnote 9: F. B. Jevons, _Introduction to the Study of Comparative Religion_, 1908, p. 18. Footnote 10: Like the late Dean Stanley, who in his Lectures on the _History of the Jewish Church_, talked about the synagogue of the Jewish settlement in Rome under the first Emperors “fascinating the proud Roman nobles by the glimpse it gave of a better world” (vol. III. p. 410). Footnote 11: According to Josephus (_Antiq._ XVIII. i. 3, 4) they did not amount to more than 6000 men distributed throughout the whole of Palestine. Morrison thinks that “the Pharisaic party had no attraction for the great bulk of the population,” _The Jews under Roman Rule_ 1890, p. 307. Footnote 12: See Chap. V _infra_. Footnote 13: See Neander, _General Hist. of the Christian Religion and Church_, Eng. ed. 1853, vol. I. p. 126. Footnote 14: _De Natura Deorum_, c. XXVIII. The statement is put into the mouth of Balbus whose arguments Cicero declares to have in his opinion “the greater probability.” See also Athenagoras, _Legatio_, c. XXII. and Minucius Felix, c. XIX. With such interpretations or mythoplasms, Philo of Alexandria was familiar. Cf. F. C. Conybeare, _Apology of Apollonius_, 1894, p. 9. Footnote 15: Dill, _Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius_, 1904, p. 419. Footnote 16: _De Iside et Osiride_, c. XXV. Footnote 17: Hatch, _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 124. Footnote 18: Origen, _contra Celsus_, t. III. c. 44. Cf. Hatch, where last quoted. Footnote 19: Cf. Dill, _Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire_, 1899, p. 38, n. 4. See also the edict of Constantine quoted in the concluding chapter, _infra_. The steps which led up to the policy are well summarized by Walter Johnson, _Byways of British Archaeology_, 1912, p. 25. Footnote 20: