ism and communion with Christ.

9. This system of Paul, however, demanded a high price of its votaries.
Acceptance of the belief meant the surrender of reason and free thinking.
This breach in pure monotheism opened the door for the whole heathen
mythology and the worship of the heathen deities in a new form. But the
saddest result was the dualism of the system; the kingdom of God predicted
by the prophets and sages of Israel for all humanity was transferred to
the hereafter, and this life with all its healthy aspirations was
considered sinful and in the hands of Satan. The cross, originally a sign
of life,(1411) became from this time and through the Middle Ages a sign of
death, casting a shadow of sin upon the Christian world and a shadow of
terror upon the Jew.

The greatest harm of all, however, was done to Judaism itself. Paul made a
caricature of the Law, which he declared to be a rigid, external system,
not elevating life, but only inciting to transgression and engendering
curse. He even aroused a feeling of hatred toward the Law, which grew in
intensity, until it became a source of untold cruelty for many centuries.
This spirit permeated the Gospels more and more in their successive
appearance, even finding its way into the Sermon on the Mount. In the
simple form given in the Gospel of Luke this was a teaching of love and
tenderness; in Matthew, Jesus is represented as offering a new
dispensation to replace the revelation of Sinai.(1412) Here the Mosaic law
is presented as a system of commandments demanding austere adherence to
the letter with no regard to the inner life, whereas, on the other hand,
the actual teachings of the Nazarene were animated by love and sympathy,
emanating from the ethical spirit of the Law. Yet the very words of Jesus
in this same sermon disavow every hint of antinomianism: "Verily I say
unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no
wise pass from the Law till all be fulfilled."(1413) As a matter of fact,
the very teachings of love and inwardness which are embodied in both the
Sermon on the Mount and the epistles of Paul were largely adopted from the
Pharisean schools and Hasidean works as well as from the Alexandrian
Propaganda literature and the Proselyte Manuals preserved by the Church.

In fact, part of this criticism was voiced by the Pharisees, as they
attacked the Sadducean insistence upon the letter of the Law. The
Pharisean spirit of progress applied n