Oscar Wilde quipped that the chief argument against Christianity was the style of St Paul. He should have also added Paul’s teachings.

Jesus thought of Himself purely as a Jew, sharing the ideas of the prophets, continuing their work, preaching like them only to the Jews and instructing His disciples to spread His gospel only to Jewish cities. Jesus told them to “go not into the way of the gentiles”. He pointed out to the Samaritan woman that “Salvation is of the Jews”.

Paul ignored Jesus’s injunction and went “into the way of the gentiles”.

Will Durant wrote in Caesar and Christ: “Paul created a theology of which none but the vaguest warrants can be found in the words of Christ... Egypt, Asia Minor and Hellas had long since believed in gods - Osiris, Attis, Dionysus - who had died to redeem mankind…

“Paul added to this popular and consoling theology certain mystic concepts already made current by the Book of Wisdom and the philosophy of Philo. Christ, said Paul, is ‘the wisdom of God, the first-born Son of God…

“Through these interpretations, Paul could neglect the actual life and sayings of Jesus, whom he had not directly known.”

Jesus said: “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail.” Paul repudiated the same law and called it a curse.

Voltaire observed in his Philosophical Dictionary that “Jesus adhered to the Jewish religion during the whole of His life. He performed its functions, frequented the temple and announced nothing contrary to Jewish law. All His disciples were Jews and observed the Jewish ceremonies. There is not a single dogma characteristic of Christianity that was preached by Jesus. It is certainly not He who established the Christian religion.”