from Judaism was entirely the work of Paul of Tarsus. In this Maccoby's view is largely based on that of Heinrich Graetz. Maccoby claimed that Paul was a Hellenized Jewish convert or perhaps even a Gentile, from a background in which he had been exposed to the influence of Gnosticism and the pagan mystery religions, such as the Attis cult, a myth involving a life-death-rebirth deity. The mystery religions, according to Maccoby, were the dominant religious forms in the Hellenistic world of that age and strongly influenced Paul's mythological psychology. Maccoby partially derived this theory from fragments of the writings of opponents of Ebionites, particularly the treatise on Heresies by Epiphanius of Salamis. Maccoby considered Paul's claims to an orthodox Pharisaic Jewish education to be false, asserting that while many of Paul's writings sound authentic to the uninitiated, they actually betray an ignorance of the original Hebrew scripture and the subtleties of Jewish Law. Maccoby claimed that an examination of the New Testament indicates that Paul knew no Hebrew at all, and relied entirely on Greek texts that no actual Pharisee would ever use because they were not properly translated from the Hebrew originals. According to Maccoby, Paul fused the historical story of Jesus' crucifixion with elements of contemporary mystery religions and Gnosticism, developing such new non-Judaic mythic ideas as the Trinity and the Last Supper. Paul also made an attempt to find prophetic justification for his newly created myth in the Old Testament. Paul came to present Jesus as a dying and rising saviour deity similar to those from the Hellenistic mystery cults, fused with the historical pedigree of Judaism, thus giving birth to a powerful new myth whose preaching gained him a large following. As the Jerusalem group of the original disciples of Jesus gradually became aware of Paul's teachings, bitter hostility ensued between them. Maccoby interpreted certain New Testament passages (for example Paul's account of his quarrel with Peter in the Incident at Antioch) as remnants of authentic accounts of this hostility. However, the Jewish Rebellion of 66–70 soon brought a violent end to the Jerusalem sect, and the Gentile Church founded by Paul emerged as the winner by default. Maccoby viewed the Book of Acts as a later attempt by the Pauline Church to present the relations between Paul and the Jerusalem disciples as harmonious, thus presenting the Pauline Church as legitimised by the chain of