Professor Goguel in his ‘La Naissance du Christianisme’ and Professor Brandon in his ‘The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church’ have both put forward new hypotheses, which, if accepted, ask for a new orientation on many of the still unsolved questions of Christian origins. Professor Goguel maintains that the direct evidence in our possession for the history of Christian origins is the residue of a process of selection and interpretation of fact performed by early Catholicism in accordance with its own opinions and beliefs as to its origin. Hence, he claims, the most valuable evidence is to be found in what conflicts with its presuppositions. Early Catholicism presumed that it was the product of an original and ideal unity. But it could not be denied, although Acts tries to gloss over the fact, that Paul and the mother church had been divided. Goguel finds evidence that they were so divided that the Christians in Jerusalem tried to suppress Paul and his teaching and at the outset appeared to succeed. The Jerusalem community, he claims, considered Jesus to have become Messiah after his death when God exalted him to the position; their faith lacked all pneumatism; their emphasis was on Jesus as teacher. They regarded themselves as continuing to be members of the Jewish church and salvation as a Jewish prerogative provided those who had consented to Jesus' death repented of their sin.

Broadly speaking, there are discernible in the several manifestations of Christianity — one is almost tempted to say, of all religion — two general attitudes. These attitudes of movement or inclination have very well been termed the horizontal and the vertical.

Judged by its survival in manuscripts, the most popular Latin hymn in Middle English translations was “Criste qui lux es et dies.” Challenged only by “Ave Maris stella” in six versions, and trailed by three hymns extant in three MSS. each (“Alma redemptoris mater,” “Hostis Herodes impie,” and “Vexilla regis prodeunt”), this piece is found in eight different versions, all except one of the fifteenth century:

In 1900 W. Kroll came to the conclusion that Vettius Valens lived under the Antonines. Indeed one finds, scattered over the whole work, some forty references to specific dates as examples for the astrological methods under discussion, these dates ranging from Nero 1 (A.D. 54) to Antoninus 21 (A.D. 157).