§ 2
Already in the Epistles the incompatibility of the original critical spirit with sectarian policy has become clear. Paul—if the first epistle to the Thessalonians be his—exhorts his converts to “prove all things, hold fast what is good”;[19] and by way of making out the Christist case against unpliable Jews he argues copiously in his own way; but as soon as there is a question of “another Jesus”[20] being set up, he is the sectarian fanatic pure and simple, and he no more thinks of applying the counsel of criticism to his dogma[21] than of acting on his prescription of love in controversy. “Reasonings” (λογισμοὺς) are specially stigmatized: they must be “cast down.”[22] The attitude towards slavery now becomes a positive fiat in its support;[23] and all political freethinking is superseded by a counsel of conformity.[24] The slight touch of rationalism in the Judaic epistle of James, where the principle of works is opposed to that of faith, is itself quashed by an anti-rational conception of works.[25] From a sect so taught, freethinking would tend to disappear. It certainly obtruded itself early, for we have the Pauline complaint[26] that “some among you say there is no rising from the dead”; but men of that way of thinking had no clear ground for belonging to the community, and would soon be preached out of it, leaving only so much of the spirit of criticism as produced heresies within the sphere of supernaturalism.