It seems even more difficult to trace the prohibitions of the Decree to the Levitical prohibitions, Lev. xvii., xviii., which were binding on strangers or sojourners in Israel (LXX προσήλντοι), since, if the written law was to be the source of the Jerusalem prohibitions, it is inexplicable that the variations from it both in matter and number should be
136
40. Παῦλος δὲ ἐπιλεξάμενος Σίλαν ἐξῆλθε, παραδοθεὶς τῇ χάριτι τοῦ
Θεοῦ 1 ὑπὸ τῶν ἀδελφῶν.
41. διήρχετο δὲ τὴν Συρίαν καὶ Κιλικίαν,
1 του Θεου, cf. xiv. 26, but best τον Κ. with ΔΑ ΕΒ(1)), Vulg. (am. fu. demid. tol.), Sah., so Tisch., W.H., Blass, R.V., Wendt, Weiss, Hilg.
so observable (Hort, u. s., p. 70); and although Wendt (so Ritsch?, Overbeck, Lipsius, Zéckler, Holtzmann, and others ; see on the other hand, Weiss, Biblische Theol., p. 145; Felten, Apostelgeschichte, p- 297; Lightfoot, Galatians, p. 306; Hilgenfeld, Zeitschrift fur wissenschaft. Theol., i., 72, 73, 1896) adopts the view that in the four prohibitions of the Jerusalem Decree we have the form in which prohibitions binding upon pro- selytes in the wider sense, 1.ε., upon the uncircumcised φοβούμ. or σεβ. τὸν Θεόν, existed in the Apostolic days, he can only say that this is “very probable”: of direct historical evidence, as Zéckler admits, there is none. The difficulty is so great in supposing that Paul and Barnabas could have submitted to the distinction drawn between the Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians that it has led to doubts as to the historical character of the decree. Weizsacker and McGiffert maintain that the decree was formulated after Paul’s departure, when James had reconsidered the matter, and had determined that some restriction should be put upon the complete Gentile liberty which had been previously granted. But this view can only be maintained by the sacrifice of xvi. 4, where Paul is distinctly said to have given the decrees to the Churches to keep.
Ramsay, agreeing with Lightfoot, calls the Decree a compromise, and although, as he points out, it seems impossible to suppose that St. Paul would have en- dorsed a decree which thus made mere points of ritual compulsory, it is pro- bable, he thinks, that after the exordium in which the Jewish party had been so emphatically condemned, the concluding part of the Decree would be regarded as a strong recommendation that the four points should be observed in the interests of peace and amity (δέ. Paul, p. 172). In a previous passage, p. 167, he seems to take a very similar view to Wendt, who answers the question as to how the Precepts of the Decree were to be observed by the Gentile converts by maintaining that they were an attempt to make intercourse more feasible between the Jewish Christians and their Gentile brethren, p. 265 (1899).
We naturally ask why the Decree apparently fell so quickly into abeyance, and. why it did not hold good over a wider area, since in writing to Corinth and Rome St. Paul never refers to it. But, to say nothing of the principle laid down in the reading of Codex D (see above on p. 323), St. Paul’s language in 1 Cor. viii. I-13, x. 14-22, Rom. xiv., may be fairly said to possess the spirit of the Decree, and to mark the discriminating wisdom of one eager to lead his disciples behind the rule to the principle; and there is no more reason to doubt the historical truth of the compact made in the Jerusalem Decree, because St. Paul never expressly refers to it, than there is to throw doubt upon his statement in Gal. ii. το, because he does not expressly refer to it as an additional motive for urging the Corinthians to join in the collection for the poor saints, 2 Cor. viii. ο. But further, there is α sufficient answer to the above question in the fact that the Decree was ordained for the Churches which are specifically men- tioned, viz., those of Antioch (placed first as the centre of importance, not only as the local capital of Syria, but as the mother ot the Gentile Churches, the Church from which the deputation had come), Syria and Cilicia. In these Churches Jewish prejudice had made it- self felt, and in these Churches with their constant communication with Jerusalem the Decree would be maintained. The language of St. James in xxi. 25 proves that some years later reference was naturally made to the Decree as a standard still regulating the intercourse between Jewish and Gentile Christians, at least in Jerusalem, and we may pre- sume in the Churches -neighbouring. St. Paul’s attitude towards the Decree is marked by loyal acceptance on the one hand, and on the other by a deepening recognition of his own special sphere among the Gentiles as the Apostle of the Gentiles, Gal. ii. 9. Thus we find him delivering the Decrees to the Churches of his first missionary journey, xvi. 4, although those Churches were not men- tioned in the address of the Decree (πο mention is made of the same action on his part towards the Churches in Syria