its organization, for, if they had instituted it, they would not have
attached to the Messiah the Greek title signifying the Christ, but,
writing their version of the Gospel story in their own dialect, would
have used the Hebrew word signifying the Shiloh (see Gen. xlix. 10);
and furthermore, having conceived the idea that he would manifest
himself as a great temporal prince, who would re-establish the throne
of David, and deliver them from the oppression of foreign rulers, they
would not have attached to him the humble characteristics of the Christ
of the new Testament. Again, if they had been the authors of modern
Christianity, it would have been a most surprising inconsistency for
them to turn right about and reject its conceptions of a savior,
especially when that rejection resulted in the dire persecutions to
which their race has ever been subjected by the Christians. But the
Gentile riffraff, attracted by the gracious promises of enjoying in the
world to come the felicities denied them in this, eagerly attached
themselves to the new sect, which rapidly increased in numbers, and its
votaries, glorying in the opprobrious epithet of Ebionites, or needy
ones, made themselves so obnoxious by their aggression and turbulent
dispositions that, barely tolerated by the Government and condemned by
the cultured adherents to the established religion, many of them,
courting the crown of martyrdom, suffered death at the hands of the
civil authorities; and thus was engendered that spirit of hatred
against their fancied oppressors which only awaited the opportunity to
manifest itself in deeds of rapine and-bloodshed.

The fanacticism which prevailed among the earlier Christians was the
direct result of their dense ignorance, and to this sole cause we may
ascribe all the trouble which the Roman Government had with them, and
to become convinced of this fact we have but to study church history.
In reference to this subject Mosheim, in his Ecclesiastical History;