When we turn to the Epistle to the Galatians, we find the controversy accentuated. The Gala- tians had been ' bewitched ' by the Jewish emis- saries. They had relapsed from the simplicity of the gospel into the ceremonialism of Judaism. The authority of the Apostle had been disparaged and denied. St. Paul was evidently deeply stirred, as well as fully conscious of the danger to Chris- tianity which was caused by the action of the Judaizers. The result was an Epistle which, in burning words, pleads for tiie liberty of the gospel and warns against the retrograde step of again submitting to the bondage of the Law.
The Church in Colossae was affected by the Judaism of the Dispersion, which (littered in some respects from the Judaism of Jerusalem. The view of the Colossian heresy which was held formerly, as expounded by J. B. Liglitfoot in his Commentary (^1879, p. 74 f.), was that this heresy was a form of Gnosticism, but F. J. A. Hort in his Judnistic Christianity (1894, p. 11611.) con- tends that St. Paul had in mind a form of Judaism rather than of Gnosticism. It is not the Judaism of Jerusalem which laid stress upon the importance of circumcision and the Law, but the
Judaism of the Dispersion, which concerned itself with such questions as difference of food, differ- ence of days, etc. (Col 2^®- ^"- -i). According to thia view, the (piXocrocpla of Col 2" refei's to the detailed passage in Col 2'^--^, and the meats, drinks, feasts, new moons, and Sabbaths, are Judaic.
Hort also takes the same view with regard to the Pastoral Epistles, and concludes his argument as follows :
' On the whole then in the Pastoral Epistles, no less than in Colossiaiis, it seems impossible to find clear evidence of specu- lative or Gnosticising- tendencies. We do find however a dangerous fondness for Jewish trifling', both of the legendary and of the legal or casuistical liind. We find also indications, but much less prominent, of some such abstinences in the matter of foods (probably chiefly animal food and wine) as at Colossae and Rome, with a probability that marriage would before long come likewise under a religious ban. But of cir- cumcision and the perpetual validity of the Law we have nothing ' (p. 146).
3. In the Epistle to the Hebrews.— With all
the mystery which surrounds the identity of tiie author of the Epistle to the Hebrews and the community to which it was addressed, it is clear that the whole argument is directed against the Judaizers. The people addressed are evidently in danger of apostasy. They do not see what the gospel can otter them in exchange for the loss they have sustained in being expelled from the syna- gogue.
It is not necessary here to detail the argument of the Epistle, which may be studied in the art. on Hebrews, Ep. to the, or in the article in HDB ; but the superiority of Christ over Judaism is its main burden, and the Epistle is pregnant with the difficulties of Christianity confronted with Judaizing teachers. It deals with those who, as Hort says, ' without abjuring the name of Jesus, . . . treat their relation to him as trivial and secondary compared with their relation to the customs of their forefathers and their living countrymen ' (p. 157).
In conclusion, we may say that Judaistic Chris- tianity was a natural product of the circumstances of the Apostolic Age, a product which was des- tined to be a source of internal trouble to the primitive Church. It lived on for some time, with occasional outbursts of revival, and at length died naturally away.
Judaism decreased as Christianity increased. Jews who became Christians were not forbidden to observe the laws and customs to which they were attached, but were enjoined to seek beneath the letter of the ordinance for the truth of which it was the exponent. No attempt Avas to be made to enforce upon Gentile Christians the bondage of the Law or to take away the liberty with which Christ had made them free.
Literature. — In addition to the works already meiuioned, see R. J. Knowling:. ' Acts,' in EG7\ 1900 ; W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, 1S95 ; F. W. Farrar, Life and Wark of St. Paul, 181*7 ; K. Lake, The Earlier Epistles of St. Paul, 1911, p. 14; A. de Boysson, La Loi et la Foi, 1912, MORLEY STEVENSON.
JUDAS BARSABBAS.— After the Council of the apostles and elders held at Jerusalem to settle the matter in dispute between the JeAvisii and Gentile Christians at Antioch, it was resolved to send to Antioch along Avith St. Paul and Barnabas two deputies entrusted Avith the letter containing the decrees of the brethren of Jerusalem. These deputies Avere Judas Barsabbas anil Silas (Ac 15"). Tlie fact that they Avere selected as deputies of tlie Jerusalem Church on this iiii])ortant mission ])roves that they were men of considerable inttuence in the Church. They are called chief men among tlie brethren {ijyovij.ii'ovs), and were probably elders. The narrative tells us that both Avere endoAved with the prophetic gift (v.^-) and that they cou
JUDAS (OF DAMASCUS)
JUDAS ISCARIOT
65;
tinued a considerable time in Antioch teaching and exhorting tne believers there. After their work, the restoring of peace among the contend- ing factions, was accomplished, they were free to depart. Judas returned to Jerusalem, while Silas remained and became the companion of St. Paul on his second missionary journey. The contention of some critics that Silas returned to Jerusalem with Judas and that v.** is spurious, is met by the view of Ramsay (St. Paul, p. 174 f.), who holds that v.^^ simply means that freedom was given to the two deputies to depart, and that v.^ was omitted by a copyist who misunderstood v.'^ (cf. Zahn, Einleitung, i. 148).