Accordingly, the conversion of the Gentiles made at first but slow progress; few came within touch of the Christian ministry but those who had already become regular attendants on the worship of the synagogue, the devout Gentiles who clustered round Jewish congre- gations in Greek cities. These were not proselytes, for they shrank from circumcision with all the ceremonial bondage and social ex- clusiveness which it entailed; but they had become familiar with the language, the history and the spirit of the Old Testament, and had accepted much of its theology and morality. They were pre- disposed by these antecedents to listen gladly to a Gospel which placed the love of God and man above ritual observance and taught the brotherhood of all mankind: and so embraced the faith in considerable numbers. But these Greeks had no rights whatever in the Jewish congregation; though their attendance was tolerated, if not encouraged, they were only admitted on sufferance. They were therefore at first content, after having occupied so subordinate a position in the synagogue, to fill a secondary place in the Church, and to acquiesce willingly in the leadership of Jewish Christians.
These considerations account for the tardy growth of Gentile Christianity, which lingered for several years on the eastern coast of the Levant without an attempt to raise its voice in the Greek cities to the west.1 Even in Antioch, afterwards the mother-city of Greek Christianity, the Greeks were slow to vindicate their independence of Judaism. The prompt response however of that Church to the call of the Spirit for special labourers in the Lord’s vineyard attested at last the growing strength of their spiritual life and their hopeful confidence in the future of the Kingdom. The diffusion of the faith had up to that time been due more to provi- dential circumstances than to spontaneous effort ; refugees had been driven by persecution to seek safety in distant cities, and had carried their faith with them in their flight. But the mission of Barnabas and Saul was a purely missionary enterprise despatched for the express purpose of extending the Gospel to the islands and coasts of the Mediterranean. The two Apostles were necessarily invested with wide discretion in regard to the conduct of their mission ;
1Thirteen years elapsed between the conversion of Saul and the Apostolic Council. The baptism of Cornelius took place before Christian refugees from Jerusalem had settled in Czesarea or Philip had taken up his abode there; so that it coincided more or less closely with the beginning of this period, whereas the mission of Paul and Barnabas belongs to its latter years; for the special object of the Apostolic Council was to allay the heart-burnings aroused among Jewish Christians by its success, and to restore the peace of the Church,