or healing and redemption, and a close
identification of salvation with individual immortality; and, finally,
trust in sacraments ('mysteries,' in Greek) as indispensable means of
grace or redemption. This was the Paganism with which Christianity had
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