PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY.

"The Christian religion has been tried for eighteen hundred years. The religion of Christ has yet to be tried."—(Lessing.)

HE Christianity of Christ was a very simple religion. It

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was a religion of love; of charitable thoughts; of kind acts; of good deeds. It was founded on the "golden rule;" indeed, that was the sum of it. But from this simple religion has evolved, gradually, the repulsive religion of what is known as orthodox Christianity. From decade to decade, from generation to generation, from century to century, this evolving process has gone on; each of these periods of time furnishing its quota of new dogmas, ceremonies and rites, until the Christianity of to-day has become as unlike the Christianity of Christ as are the gaudy decorations of the Pope of Rome unlike the plain garb of a Quaker.

Dr. Lewis G. Janes, in his book called A Story of Primitive Christianity, says: "The salvation of men in the teaching of Jesus, depended upon the acceptance of no dogmatic standard of truth, but solely upon righteous living. . . . The popular Christian doctrine of a vicarious atonement and substituted righteousness has no place in the teachings of the Nazarene prophet. The conception of himself (Jesus,) or of another, as a Son of God, in any exclusive or supernatural sense; of a God coming upon earth in human form; would have been as abhorrent and unnatural to Jesus as it had ever been to his people (the Jews.) The trinitarian dogma is a belief as impossible to the true Israelite (as was Jesus) as any other form of polytheism or idolatry."

As showing the advance in priest-made dogmas, even from one century to the next, Dr. Draper says: "Great is the difference between Christianity under Severus (born 146) and

Christianity under Constantine (born 274.) Many of the doctrines which at the latter period were pre-eminent, in the former were unknown. As years passed on, the faith described by Tertulian (second century) was transferred into one more fashionable and debased."

T. W. Doane, in Bible Myths, says: "The sublime and simple theology of the primitive Christian-was gradually corrupted and degraded by the introduction of a popular mythology."

Rev. Edward Everett Hale, in North American Review, January, 1889, says: "I am very glad to have the attention of religious people brought back to the early literature which sets in new light the simple religion which was proclaimed by Jesus Christ; while it destroys the man-made theology of the last fifteen centuries."

The Christian religion (not the religion of Christ) has been formulated by the several councils of the Christian Church. As a sample of these councils, we may take that of Nice 321more than half of the delegates to which council were arbitrarily dismissed from it, because their opinions were opposed to those of the Emperor Constantine. In it, like in most of the Church councils in after years, was exhibited a bitterness of feeling among the (remaining) delegates that made its proceedings most disgraceful. No political convention of modern times will compare, in uproar and tumult, deception and trickery, with these Church assemblies. Says Rev. Philip Shaff, D. D.: "There were also gathered at the councils (of the Christian Church) ignorance, intrigue, party passion; arrayed as hostile armies for open combat." The Christian religion being formulated under such circumstances, no wonder that it became, as it flowed down the centuries, as different from the religion of Christ, as is a mighty river, gathering impurities in its course, different from the pure and limpid waters of its original stream."

Rev. R. Heber Newton says: "In the early centuries creed followed creed till we got tired of trying to keep track of them. The same thing took place in the Reformation period. Every

nation spawned creeds. Let them open the Westminster Confession, the Thirty-nine articles, etc., and mark with a red pencil every faith on which Jesus Christ had spoken a word, and they would find that task an object lesson in the modern theology on fallen man-not a word on the atonement; future punishment, not a word; on hell scarcely a word, and so through the Reformation theology. . Will Christianity

ever get back to Jesus Christ?"

'Christ's teaching was one thrilling protest against ecclesiasticism. His life was one pathetic plea for religious freedom. He cut down doctrinism and dogmatism as a mower cuts down thistles. In his insistance on practical holiness, there was no room for chatter about creeds. This fervent young rabbi had no time to formulate a 'shorter catechism.'”—(Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Forum, May, 1889.)

Rev. John W. Chadwick says: "That legend which went on growing, century after century, until the theological conception of Jesus Christ was as unlike the actual man who trod the earth of Galilee, as Pollock's course of time, is unlike the simple songs that came straight from the heart of Robert Burns. If you know of any two things more unlike, then you can make a contrast of your own and it will be better than mine; for the more unlike the things that you contrast, the better will they image forth the difference between the actual Jesus and the theological being who in about three centuries was substituted for Jesus. Any Jewish church of our own time is nearer to the primitive Christian orthodoxy (of Jerusalem) than any form of modern Christianity that vaunts its orthodoxy. Had there been no Paul, Christianity would have been only a Jewish sect.. conversion of the Roman Empire by Christianity was about equally the conversion of Christianity by the Roman Empire. The Empire became Christian; Christianity became Pagan."

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Alfred H. O'Donohue, late of Trinity College, Dublin, in his book, Theology and Mythology, says: "The doctrines that Jesus taught-the brotherhood of man and the condemnation of priestcraft-entitle him forever to the admiration and

gratitude of his race. Christianity, as taught and understood by Jesus and his followers, has teased to exist for sixteen hundred years. In modern Christianity hardly a trace of the religion of Jesus is discernible. . . . If Jesus and his true life were taken from Christianity, it is doubtful if it would excite notice.

The doctrines of the incarnation, of the resurrection, of the atonement, of the immaculate conception, of the divinity of Christ, of the " procession" of the Holy Ghost, of the Trinity, of inspiration of gospels or epistles, of the infallibility of a man or of a church, were all unknown to the founder of Christianity. Christ did not make the Christianity of to-day and is no more responsible for it than he is for the religion of Buddha or Mohammed; indeed there is as much semblance between either of these two religions and that of Christ's religion, as there is between the latter and the Christianity of to-day, which was manufactured by the "fathers" and by the clergy generally in the several centuries succeeding the time of Christ. The Bible is not the work of Moses, of David, of Saul, the four evangelists, but of those ecclesiastics who made those writings to correspond with the declarations of the Church; making such alterations, omissions and interpolations as suited their purposes. "The Bible is the creation of the Church; not the Church the creation of the Bible. . . . The Bible did not form the beliefs; the beliefs formed the Bible."

The doctrines of the immaculate conception and resurrection of Christ were in process of development only towards the close of the second century; in the middle or latter part of which century most of the books of the New Testament appeared. The name "New Testament" was not given till the third century, and during this century these writings were declared to be inspired; prior to which time those who claimed the New Testament to be inspired were denounced as heretics.

The observance of Sunday as a rest-day was first proclaimed in 321, and as the "Sabbath," in the seventeenth century. The doctrine of the Trinity first appeared in the fourth cen

tury. That of "inherited guilt" was promulgated in the fifth century.

The name "Bible" was first applied to the books of the Old and New Testament, collectively, in the fifth century. The season of "Lent" was first recognized in the fifth century.

The " Christian Era" was invented in the sixth century. It was not authoritatively determined upon what day the resurrection of Christ should be celebrated till the seventh century. Transubstantiation became a dogma in the ninth century. The celibacy of the clergy became a requisite in the eleventh century.

The dogma of the atonement also first appeared in the eleventh century.

The doctrine of eternal punishment for disbelievers in the Bible originated at the Council of Trent, 1545

The infallibility of the Bible became a dogma of the Protestant Church in the sixteenth century.

The immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary (that she was born of Anne without original sin) became a dogma of the Romish Church in the nineteenth century.

Mosheim, in his Commentaries (p. 228) describes the Gnostics of the first century as those who pretend that they are able to communicate to mankind a correct knowledge of the Deity, the origin of the world, the nature of matter and the human soul. They were regarded as corrupters of the Christianity of Christ. The orthodox Christians of to-day hold the same pretentious and dogmatic relation to the pure religion of Christ that the Gnostics did in the first century and may be regarded, equally, as corrupters of true Christianity. The Agnostics of to-day far better represent the religion of Christ than do those assuming the name of Christian.

"The Christianity of Christendom is fundamentally opposed to the Christianity of Christ. In attacking ecclesiasticism, I am really defending the prophet of Nazareth.”—(Alfred Momerie.)

"As the Church advanced in worldly power and position a