Jamnian Synhedrion, in contrast to the dissensions which reigned in the Christian community, a Jewish Christian wrote: "Our fellow-tribesmen follow to the present day the same law concerning the unity of God and the proper mode of life, and cannot form a different opinion of the meaning of the Scriptures. It is only according to prescribed rules that they endeavor to bring into agreement the sayings of Scripture, but they do not permit a man to teach unless he has learnt beforehand how to explain the Holy Scriptures. They have but one God, one Law, one hope. If we do not follow the same course, our word of truth will, through the variety of opinion, be shattered. This I know, not as a prophet, but because I see the root of the evil; for some of the heathens have put aside with the Law the prophecies in agreement with it, and have adopted the unlawful and absurd teachings of an enemy (Paul)." These words are placed in the mouth of Peter, the second of the apostles. But the Ebionites not only called Paul's predictions and instructions, of which he thought so much, unlawful and absurd, but gave him a nickname, which was meant to brand him and his followers. They called him Simon Magus, a half-Jewish (Samaritan) wizard, who is said to have bewitched all the world with his words. He was said also to have been baptized, but it was asserted that he had not received his position as apostle through the Holy Ghost from Jesus' disciples, but had sought it through bribes to the Ebionite community. The honor was not only absolutely refused to him, but Simon Peter had threatened him with damnation, for his heart was full of deceit, bitterness, and injustice. The freedom from the Jewish Law inaugurated by Paul was characterized as unbridled license, as the teaching of Balaam, which brought in its train the worship of idols and the pursuit of vice. The leaders of the heathens did not hesitate to reply in a similar strain, and perhaps repaid their opponents with even greater hatred when, to religious opposition, there was added the dislike of the Romans and Greeks to the Jews, even after they had become followers of Jesus. In the larger Christian congregations the two sects often fell into distinct groups and became isolated from each other. In the circular letters, which the chiefs of the various Christian parties were accustomed to send to the communities, they made use of sharp or condemnatory observations against the opponents of the opinions which they held to be the only true ones. Even the stories of the birth of Jesus, his works, sufferings, death and resurrection, which were written down, under the title of the Evangels, only in the first quarter of the second century, were colored by the views of the two parties, who put teachings and sayings into the mouth of the Founder of Christianity, not as he had uttered them, but according to their own views. These narratives were favorable to the Law of the Jews and