teaches mankind accordingly, shall be the last in the kingdom of heaven; but he who obeys them, and teaches them, shall be considered great in the kingdom of heaven." Even the devotion of Jewish Christians to Jesus was not of a nature to separate them from Judaism. They considered him as a holy and morally great man, who was descended in the natural way from the race of David. This son of David had advanced the kingdom of heaven because he taught men to live modestly and in poverty, like the Essenes, from whose midst, in fact, Christianity had sprung. From their contempt of riches and preference for poverty they bore the name of Ebionites or Ebionim (poor), which was travestied by their Christian opponents into a nickname meaning "poor in spirit." Fearing to be eclipsed by the other party, the primitive Jewish Christian community sent out messengers to the foreign communities, in order to impress on them not only the Messianic character of Jesus, but also the duty which they owed to the Law. Thus they founded Judæo-Christian colonies, of which that at Rome in time became the chief. In opposition to these were the heathen Christians. As the term "Son of God," as used in the language of the prophets, contained an idea entirely incomprehensible to them, they interpreted it according to their own mode of thought, as meaning God's actual Son, a conception which was as clear and acceptable to the heathen as it was strange and repulsive to the Jews. When once the idea of a Son of God was accepted, it became necessary to eliminate from the life of Jesus all those traits which appertained to him as a human being, such as his natural birth from parents, and thus the statement developed that this Son of God was born of a virgin through the Holy Ghost. The first great difference between the Ebionites and the heathen Christians lay in their views concerning the person of Jesus; the one honoring him as the son of David, the other worshiping him as the Son of God. The second point turned on the stress to be laid on the laws of Judaism. The heathen party paid but little attention to the laws relating to the community of property and contempt for riches, which were the chief ends of Ebionite Christianity. The heathen or Hellenic Christians had their chief seat in Asia Minor, namely, in seven cities, which, in the symbolical language of that time, were called the seven stars and the seven golden lamps. Ephesus was the chief of these heathen Christian congregations. Between the Ebionite and Hellenic congregations, which possessed in common only the name of the founder, there arose strained relations and a mutual dislike, which became more bitter with time. Paul and his disciples were fiercely hated by the Jewish Christians. They did not cease, even after his death, to use expressions of contempt against the circumcised apostle who only spread error. Admiring the unity and solidarity which prevailed in the