the character of a universal religion. In order to understand the nature of the case, and be able to estimate aright the solution which is presented by the narrative in the Acts of the Apostles, it is necessary that we should obtain a clear view of the actual characteristics of Christianity at the period when that history begins. We must endeavour to understand precisely what view the Apostles had formed of their position in regard to Judaism, and of the duty which devolved upon them of propagating the Gospel. It is obvious that we cannot rightly appreciate the amount of persuasion requisite to transform the primitive Church from Jewish exclusive-ness to Christian universality, without ascertaining the probable amount of long rooted conviction and religious prejudice or principle which had to be overcome before that great change could be effected. We shall not here enter upon any argument as to the precise views which the Founder of Christianity may have held as to his own person and work, nor shall we attempt to sift the traditions of his life and teaching which have been handed down to us, and to separate the genuine spiritual nucleus from the grosser matter by which it has been enveloped and obscured. We have much more to do with the view which others took of the matter, and, looking at the Gospels as representations of that which was accepted as the orthodox view regarding the teaching of Jesus, they are almost as useful for our present purpose as if they had been more spiritual and less popular expositions of his views. What the Master was understood to teach is more important for the history of the first century than what he actually taught without being understood. Nothing is more certain than the fact that Christianity, originally, was {115} developed out of Judaism, and that its advent was historically prepared by the course of the Mosaic system, to which it was so closely related.(1) In its first stages during the apostolic age, it had no higher ambition than to be, and to be considered, the continuation and the fulfilment of Judaism, its final and triumphant phase. The substantial identity of primitive Christianity with true Judaism was at first never called in question; it was considered a mere internal movement of Judaism, its development and completion, but by no means its mutilation. The idea of Christianity as a new religion never entered the minds of the Twelve or of the first believers, nor, as we shall presently see, was it so regarded by the Jews themselves. It was in fact, originally, nothing more than a sect of Judaism, holding a particular view of one point in the creed and, for a very long period, it was considered so by others, and was in no way distinguished from the rest of Mosaism.(2) Even in the Acts there are traces of this, Paul being called "a ringleader of the sect [------] of the Nazarenes,"(3) and the Jews of Rome being represented as referring to Christianity by this term.(4) Paul before the Council not