The remarkable personality of Paul, who possessed much more culture and practical sense than Christ, is extremely interesting, from the anthropological point of view, from the fact that the racial origin of the two great religious founders is very much the same. Recent historical investigation teaches that Paul's father was of Greek nationality, and his mother of Jewish.[33] The half-breeds of these two races, which are so very distant in origin (although they are branches of the same species, the _homo mediterraneus_), are often distinguished by a happy blending of talents and temperament, as we find in many recent and actual instances. The plastic Oriental imagination and the critical Western reason often admirably combine and complete each other. That is visible in the Pauline teaching, which soon obtained a greater influence than the earliest Christian notions. Hence it is not incorrect to consider Paulinism a new phenomenon, of which the father was the philosophy of the Greeks, and the mother the religion of the Jews. Neoplatonism is an analogous combination. As to the real teaching and aims of Christ (and as to many important aspects of his life) the views of conflicting theologians diverge more and more, as historical criticism (Strauss, Feuerbach, Baur, Renan, etc.) puts the accessible facts in their true light, and draws impartial conclusions from them. Two things, certainly, remain beyond dispute--the lofty principle of universal charity and the fundamental maxim of ethics, the "golden rule," that issues therefrom; both, however, existed in theory and in practice centuries before the time of Christ (cf. chap. xix.). For the rest, the Christians of the early centuries were generally pure Communists, sometimes "Social Democrats," who, according to the prevailing theory in Germany to-day, ought to have been exterminated with fire and sword. II.--PAPAL CHRISTIANITY Latin Christianity, variously called Papistry, Romanism, Vaticanism, Ultramontanism, or the Roman Catholic Church, is one of the most remarkable phenomena in the history of civilized man; in spite of the storms that have swept over it, it still exerts a most powerful influence. Of the four hundred and ten million Christians who are scattered over the earth the majority--that is, two hundred and twenty-five millions--are Roman Catholics; there are seventy-five million Greek Catholics and one hundred and ten million Protestants. During a period of one thousand two hundred years, from the fourth to the sixteenth century, the papacy has almost absolutely controlled and tainted the spiritual life of Europe; on the other hand, it has won but little territory from the ancient religions of Asia and Africa. In Asia Buddhism still counts five hundred and three million followers, the Brahmanic religion one hundred and thirty-eight millions, and Islam one hundred and twenty millions.