We cannot refuse to concede to the "Catholic" Church, both Roman and Greek, that in this respect it has most faithfully preserved the spirit of the earliest Christendom. This alone is to-day what Christianity in essence once was--the religion of an association in the sense to which we have referred. Thus Catholicism justly refers to "tradition" for the truth of its religious view of the world and for the correctness of its hierarchical claims. But Catholicism itself beyond doubt first established this "tradition" in its own interests. It teaches also an "historical" Jesus, but clearly one that is historical merely by tradition, and of whose actual historical existence not the least indication has yet been established. Protestantism, on the other hand, is completely unhistoric in passing off the Gospels as the sources, as the "revealed" basis of the faith in Christ, as if they had arisen independently of the Church and represented the true beginnings of Christianity. Consequently one cannot base one's religious faith on the Gospel and wish nevertheless to stand outside of that community, since the writings of the New Testament can only pass as the expression of the community's life. One cannot therefore be Christian in the sense of the original community without obliterating one's own personality and uniting oneself as a member with the "Body of Christ"--that is, with the Church. The spirit of obedience and humility, which Christ demanded of his followers, is nothing but the spirit of subordination to the system of rules of conduct observed by the society of worship passing under his name. Christianity in the original sense is nothing but--"Catholic" Christianity; and this is the faith of the Church in the work of redemption accomplished by the God-man Christ in his Church and by means of the organisation infused with his "spirit."