to reckon, as well as with the official cult and its guardians.  The established church it conquered and destroyed; the living syncretistic beliefs it cleansed, simplified, and disciplined, but only absorbed by becoming itself a syncretistic religion.  But besides Christians and Pagans, there were the Jews, dispersed over the whole Empire.  There were at least a million in Egypt, a country which St. Paul, for reasons unknown to us, left severely alone; there were still more in Syria, and perhaps five millions in the whole Empire.  In spite of the fecundity of Jewish women, so much emphasised by Seeck in his history of the Downfall of the Ancient World, it is impossible that the Hebrew stock should have multiplied to this extent.  There must have been a very large number of converts, who were admitted, sometimes without circumcision, on their profession of monotheism and acceptance of the Jewish moral code.  The majority of these remained in the class technically called ‘God-fearers,’ who never took upon themselves the whole yoke of the Law.  These half-Jews were the most promising field for Christian missionaries; and nothing exasperated the Jews more than to see St. Paul fishing so successfully in their waters.  The spirit of propagandism almost disappeared from Judaism after the middle of the second century.  Judaism shrank again into a purely Eastern religion, and renounced the dangerous compromise with Western ideas.  The labours of St. Paul made an all-important parting of the ways.  Their result was that Christianity became a European religion, while Judaism fell back upon its old traditions.

It is very unfortunate that we have no thoroughly trustworthy records of the Apostle’s earlier mission preaching.  The Epistles only cover a period of about ten years; and the rapid development of thought which can be traced during this short time prevents us from assuming that his earlier teaching closely resembled that which we find in the Letters.  But if, during the earlier period, he devoted his attention mainly to those who were already under Jewish influence, we may be sure that he spoke much of the Messiahship of Jesus, and of His approaching return, these being the chief articles of faith in Judaic Christianity.  This was, however, only the framework.  What attracted converts was really the historical picture of the life of Jesus; his message of love and brotherhood, which they found realised in the little communities of believers; and the abolition of all external barriers between human beings, such as social position, race, and sex, which had undoubtedly been proclaimed by the Founder, and contained implicitly the promise of an universal religion.  We can infer what the manner of his preaching was from the style of the letters, which were probably dictated like extempore addresses, without much preparation.  He was no trained orator, and he thoroughly disdained the arts of the rhetorician.  His Greek, though vigorous and effective, is neither