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Rh exuberant growth of Christian literature appeared, which was arbitrarily divided into inspired and uninspired. But in both apocryphal and canonical works the stories that are told of the obscure Galilean, whom the eye of the historian can scarcely reach, are clearly borrowed from Buddhistic, Greek, and Egyptian legends. This connection of Christianity with "paganism" through the Essenes is not entirely a modern discovery.

Philo maintains the identity in creed of higher Judaism and the "Gymnosophists" of India. Eusebius and Epiphanius identify the Essenes with the early Christians. Ammonius Saccus, founder of the Neo-Platonic school, said that Christianity and Paganism differed in nothing essential, and had a common origin. Celsus said that "the Christian religion contains nothing but what Christians hold in common with heathen—nothing new." Many of the fathers admit that Christian teaching was not new, and that many concessions were made to Paganism. Gregory of Naz., writing to S. Jerome, says: "A little jargon is all that is necessary to impose on the people. The less they comprehend, the more they admire. Our forefathers and doctors have often said, not what they thought, but what circumstances and necessity dictated." Eusebius, as Gibbon says, "indirectly confesses that he has related what might redound to the glory, and that he has suppressed all that could tend to the disgrace, of religion." Minucius Felix, in his Octavius, puts these words in the mouth of Cecilius: "All these fragments of crack-brained opiniatry and silly solaces played off in the sweetness of song by deceitful [Pagan] poets, by you too credulous creatures [the Christians], have been shamefully reformed and made over to your own God." Faustus makes the same accusation to St. Augustine. The learned Christian advocate, M. Turretin, says (of the fourth century): "It was not so much the Pagans who were converted to Christianity, but Christianity was converted to Paganism." Hadrian could not see the difference between Christians and the worshippers of the ancient Egyptian god Serapis (a sun-god). King says that the worship of Serapis was