was at home in Rome and Alexandria ' ; the author of Matthew, no Jewish Christian, but ' a Roman nourished by Seneca's spirit.' Such theories justify H. Holtzmann's characterization of Bauer as ' a critical Herostratus ' [Einl. in d. NT, p. 183). If their very wildness calls for no serious refutation, it at any rate serves to demonstrate the impracticability of the attempt to assign a Hellenic origin to Christianity.
Havet's work, Le, Christianisme et ses Origines, is on somewhat similar lines, but much more moderate in tone.
There are, Havet thinks, three elements to be taken into account in considering the origin of Christianitj' , the Hellenic, the Jewish, represented by the Prophets and the Psalms, and a third which he calls the Galilsean, by which he means the senti- ments and ideas which developed at first among the turbulent population of Galilee under the misery of the Roman dominion, and then raised up Jesus, and determined His action and destiny, and which gradually spread throughout the great cities of the Roman Empire. He admits that Christianity is not to be found 'tout emitter' in Hellenism, but insists, on the other hand, that however large may be the share of Galilsean Judaism in the Christian revolution, far more considerable is that of Hellenism in Christianity once it was established. We must distinguish, he contends, between the essence and the accident, between the Christian spirit and the Christian revolution. The Christian revolution came from Judaea and Galilee. But the Christian spirit is essentially that of Grajco-Roman philosophy and religion. On the appearance of Christianity it was not the faith and wisdom of Hellenism that were absorbed into Judaism, but Judaism that was absorbed into the common beliefs of the human race. In order to establish this contention, Havet gives an exhaustive examination of Hellenic literature from the earliest times, making an anthology of all the passages which seem to breathe anything of the Christian spirit. In summarizing his conclusions, he paints a picture of the heathen world designed to show how nearly it approached to Christianity in its beliefs and hopes. The heathen believed in the inunortality of the soul, in the resurrection of the dead, in a future life with punishments and rewards, in the existence of gods who were offended by the faults of men, in the approaching end of this world and the coming of a new one. They had their temples, their altars, their prayers, their sacred songs ; while there were not wanting among them loftier spirits who held that the divinity desired no other temple than the heart of man, nor other worship than the practice of virtue. Their moral code breathed the same spirit of self-denial as Christianity inculcated ; taught men to despise riches, honours, pleasures, yea, happiness itself ; inspired an abhorrence of sin, a consciousness of our moral infirmity, and a passionate longing for salvation ; inculcated chastity, alms, charity, a horror of war, submission to authority. How is it possible, asks Havet, with such a picture before us, to speak of Christianity as renewing the face of the earth, or to hail its advent as something entirely new and unexpected ? He believes that the heathen world, if left to itself, would not have remained heathen, that its mythology and superstition would gradually have vanished, and that the feeling of human fraternity and the need of equality and justice would have developed more and more and passed into its manners and laws. This natural development it was not permitted to pursue. The Judaizers precipitated the crisis ; the reform was carried through with too great haste, with the result that the world, in becoming Christian, remained more pagan than if Hellenism had retained its mastery.
While Havet recognizes that Judaism thus played a consider- able part in the origin of Christianity, he assigns but little importance to the Person of Christ Himself in the movement which bore His name. He believes that John the Baptist was the principal personage in the religious revolution of which Jesus has the honour. Of the life of Jesus Himself we know almost nothing. Havet denies that He claimed to be the Christ, and that He was tried before the Sanhedrin and con- demned for blasphemy or any religious crime. He did not break with Judaism, nor was He the opponent of the Pharisees in the way He is represented in the Gospels. He was a Jew, ardent to fanaticism, a GalilaBan zealot who had inflamed the people of His country, and, in the end, so agitated Jerusalem itself that the Jewish authorities, whom He had compromised, handed Him over to the Roman police, by whom He was ])ut to death as a disturber of the peace. At the moment of His death, that which we call Christianitj' had no existence. He was Him- self a Christian only in His manner of feeling ; otherwise He was a pure Jew, and there is neither word nor act in His life that is not thoroughly Jewish. He introduced no new dogma or practice. He had no conception of the Trinity, or the Incarna- tion, or other mysteries,— no idea of Church or Sacraments. It was not till after His death that some began to ask, ' Was He not the Christ ? ', and the thought once started gained currency. In order to give the suggestion any plausibility, it was necessary to combine with it the belief that this Jesus who had perished miserably had been raised up from the dead to enter on a life of glory. If Jesus was the Christ, then all was not finished. He must reappear. He must come again as the Christ on the clouds of heaven to destroy this wicked world and restore Israel. The hope thus cherished was converted into actual fact. The