How the Great Apostasy Arose.
Even in this first century, several errors made their appearance, and heresies began to spring up. A difference of opinion very early arose between the Jewish and Gentile converts, about the necessity of an observance of the rules of the Mosaic law. This subject called together the first council or synod, which was held by the apostles at Jerusalem, and decided upon this question, as we read in the 15th chapter of Acts. When Jews were converted to Christianity, it was natural that they should still retain some leaning towards the opinions they had formerly entertained, and a partiality for their old ceremonies and institutions. These prejudices, which are natural to the human mind, would not fail to give to Christianity a peculiar model among Jewish converts, suitable to their particular views and feelings. A spice of the old leaven still retained, would leaven the new lump. This thing we find the apostles often laboring to correct; and the whole epistle to the Hebrews seems mainly designed for this purpose. In like manner, when heathen converts were received into the church, it was natural that they should bring with them some taint of their old philosophy, and former superstitions; and some fondness for the rites and ceremonies of their idolatrous worship. Long established opinions are seldom entirely eradicated, and old habits, with which we have been brought up, are not likely to be totally renounced. Sometimes the teachers of religion were too indulgent to these prejudices; and in order that all the gospel might be the less offensive, tolerated in their new converts, opinions and practices little consistent with it. An indulgent feeling of this sort was natural, and, duty regulated, was very proper. . . . But the principle was often carried too far. From these sources, therefore, we shall find springing up many of the errors and heresies that deformed the beauty and marred the peace of the church, during the first three or four centuries. Some of them were Jewish, but most of them of heathen origin; and all proceeded from the same source, a fondness for old opinions and practices, and a disposition to yield as far as possible to these Jewish and heathen prejudices, and thus in a good degree to remove the offense of the cross. Indeed, we shall find that when Christianity became the established religion of the Roman Empire, and took the place of Paganism, it assumed, in a great degree, the forms and rites of Paganism, and participated in no small measure of its spirit also. Christianity, as it existed in the dark ages, might be termed, without much impropriety of language, baptized Paganism.—From "Wharey's Church History."