This inference, which was involved in St. Peter’s conduct, and in his defence of it, was not, however, clearly drawn at once. The exceptional case of Cornelius was regarded as exceptional; one man and his family could not make a Church, and this isolated instance might perplex rather than en- lighten the simple-minded. But with the ex- tension of the Church to Antioch, and especially with its extension beyond Antioch through the mission conducted by Paul and Barnabas, the subject was brought up with greater urgency. In the account of the first mission of these apostles, we have a hint of the peculiar Pauline attitude to the law: ‘in this man (Jesus) every one who be- lieves is justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses,’ Ac 13%. It is not in this, however, but in the doctrine of a crucified Messiah, and perhaps in personal jealousy, that an explanation may be found of the opposi- tion ofered to the mission en route. Not Jewish Christians attached to the law, but Jews who were not Christians at all, resisted the preachers.
When Paul and Barnabas returned, they summed up the result of their mission in the words: ‘God has opened the door of faith to the Gentiles,’ Ac 14%, But this ‘conversion of the Gentiles,’ though the news of it caused great joy in Phenicia and Samaria (Ac 15°), awakened very different feelings even in Christian circles at Jerusalem. Emissaries from Jerusalem insisted on teaching (ἐδίδασκον, Ac 15?) the brethren at Antioch—men who had be- lieved in Jesus Christ and received the Holy Ghost —that without circumcision they could not be saved. It was a deliberate challenge not only to the work of Paul and Barnabas, but, as they believed, to the work of God; and as it involved the unity of the Church, it was arranged that Paul and Barnabas with some brethren from Antioch should go to settle it with the apostles and elders at Jerusalem. It was not a question on which the apostles to the Gentiles could compromise; and everything depended, not indeed for the future of Christianity, but for the present peace of the Church, on the conciliatory spirit and insight of the leaders of the Church at Jerusalem. Room wag given for discussion (Ac 15’), but the question was settled by the argument of St. Peter—an argument
* We have assumed above that the Cornelius episode is historical, and also in its right place.
LAW (IN NEW TESTAMENT)
LAW (IN NEW TESTAMENT)
Pe ia
identical in principle with that of ch. 11: ‘God who knows the heart bore witness to them (the Gentiles) in that he gave them the Holy Spirit just as he did tous; and he made no distinction
tween us and them, in that he purified their hearts by faith.’ For the Gentiles, at all events, a place in the Church and a part in salvation is in no way dependent on circumcision, or on keeping the law of Moses. This was the principle for which St. Paul contended ; and it was in consist- ency with it that he refused to have Titus cir- cumcised on the occasion of this visit to the Jewish Church (Gal 2*), and that he withstood St. Peter to the face when, during a subsequent visit to Antioch, he yielded to Jewish pressure, and withdrew from tellowship with Gentile be- lievers.
The recognition of this principle on both sides does not discredit the decree ot Ac 15%%, The decree is a measure of expediency, necessarily of a temporary character, but one to which (in the in- terests of peace and of the Church’s unity) St. Paul could easily enough agree—once his principle had been recognized. Where Judaism was ocused, in Jerusalem for instance, the law would assert itself as inevitably as nationality or patriotism ; in purely Gentile Churches no question as to its place in revelation or its religious significance might ever be raised; in places where Jew and Gentile were much in contact there would no doubt be inconsistencies, misunderstandings, and practical compromises and accommodations of various sorts. Of these the decree is a specimen.
B. The centre of interest in the NT is now in the practice and the doctrine of St. Paul.—(a) In the course of his second mission he visited Europe, and in a few verses of the Ist Ep. to the Corinthians, written to a Church founded in the course of this mission, he gives a clear and precise account of the principles on which he acted. ‘Being free from all, I made myself a slave to all, that 1 might gain the more. And I became to the Jews as a Jew, that I might gain Jews; to those under law, as under law, not being myself under law, that I might gain those under law ; to those without law {i.e. the Gentiles as ‘outlaws’ from the Jewish
oint of view), as without law, not being without aw to God, but under law to Christ (ἔννομος be- eause the Christian lives in the law, he is not under it as one to whom it speaks from without and from above, and whom it oppresses), that I might gain those without law’ (on the whole Sree 1Co 9% see the masterly note of
dwards, Comm. ad loc.). It is in pursuance of this policy that St. Paul at the outset of this journey circumcises Timothy (Ac 16°), and delivers to the Churches on his route the decree of the Jerus. Council (Ac 164) ; it is still in pursuance of it that he preaches at Corinth a gospel to which everything is indifferent but Jesus Christ crucified (1 Co 2"), and declares that circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision nothing (1 Co 718).