1. That the ascetic practices that He had taken over from John the Baptist and the Nazarenes, and which in other gospels He enjoins under the phrase of "prayer and fasting" as the machinery for developing miraculous gifts, interior vision, etc., shall be discontinued by His disciples during His lifetime and then again renewed. 2. That feastings and the use of wine, which as Nazarites He and His disciples had specially forsworn, should be again resumed, with no restrictions in this case in the matter of His death. So that by one enactment His disciples after His death were to remain jovial "wine-bibbers" by the other fasting ascetics. It is scarcely necessary to bring forward the true Luke to confute the pseudo Luke. A valuable historical transaction is recorded by the real Luke which throws a strong light on the relations between Christ and John the Baptist. Towards the close of the Saviour's career, at Jerusalem itself, the chief priests accosted Him and asked Him by what authority He did what He did. Now if the relations between Christ and John the Baptist had been what the pseudo Luke would have us believe, Christ had only to state all this and He might have saved many valuable lives. He had only to plainly announce that His movement was not from anti-mystical to mystical Israel, but from mystical to anti-mystical Israel; that he had introduced wine and oil as a protest against Essenism; that He had forbidden its ascetic fastings, and brought many disciples back from "the baptism of John" to the orthodox fold. If He had stated all this clearly, the high priest and elders would have hailed Him as a friend instead of slaying Him as a foe. But the Saviour, evidently quite unaware that He had led a great movement against the Baptist, takes refuge behind John instead of condemning him. He asks the pregnant question, Was he a prophet of God, or was he not? inferring, of course, that he was, and that the prophetic gift was "authority" enough. (Luke xx. 1, _et seq._) "For I say unto you, Among those that are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist." (Luke vii. 28.) Here again we have the real Luke confronting his unskilful interpolator. CHAPTER IX. _The Church of Jerusalem._ Competent critics hold that Luke has based the Acts on earlier records. Certainly the picture of the early Church at Jerusalem is very Essenic. The disciples had all things in common. They lived in groups of houses, with a central house of assembly, like the Therapeuts. They had two main rites, baptism and the breaking of bread. They had for officers, deacons, presbyters, ephemereuts. Wine and flesh meat were forbidden, if we may judge the parent from the daughter. For the Roman Christians before the advent of St. Paul forbade wine and flesh meat, and the Roman Church was the eldest daughter of the Church at Jerusalem. Also we see from the Apocalypse that the saints of the New Jerusalem were "virgins."