In the case of Christianity, Judea,
which was the scene of the transaction, was the centre of the mission.
The story was published in the place in which it was acted. The church
of Christ was first planted at Jerusalem itself. With that church others
corresponded. From thence the primitive teachers of the institution went
forth; thither they assembled. The church of Jerusalem, and the several
churches of Judea, subsisted from the beginning, and for many ages;
received also the same books and the same accounts as other churches
did. (The succession of many eminent bishops of Jerusalem in the first
three centuries is distinctly preserved; as Alexander, A.D. 212, who
succeeded Narcissus, then 116 years old.)
This distinction disposes, amongst others, of the above-mentioned
miracles of Apollonius Tyaneus, most of which are related to have been
performed in India; no evidence remaining that either the miracles
ascribed to him, or the history of those miracles, were ever heard of in
India. Those of Francis Xavier, the Indian missionary, with many others
of the Romish breviary, are liable to the same objection, viz.
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