Hugh J. Schonfield
Hugh Joseph Schonfield (London, 17 May 1901 – 26 January 1988, London) was a British Bible scholar specialising in the New Testament and the early development of the Christian religion and church. He was born in London, and educated there at St Paul's School and King's College, doing additional studies in the University of Glasgow. He was one of the founders and president of the pacifist organisation Commonwealth of World Citizens "Mondcivitan Republic". Religious and political beliefs Born Jewish, Schonfield became a liberal Hebrew Christian who sometimes referred to himself as a Nazarene. In 1937 Schonfield was excluded from membership of the International Hebrew Christian Alliance (IHCA), of which he had been a founding member since 1925, due to his unwillingness to affirm the deity of Jesus. He later associated with Messianic Judaism for a while, but was bitterly disillusioned by the experience. He called himself "the Jewish historian of Christian beginnings", and at the time of his death he was described in obituaries as a "non-practicing Jew." At one time he was president of the H.G. Wells Society. He founded the "Mondcivitan Republic," Commonwealth of World Citizens, in 1956. He was one of the signatories of the agreement to