The Pulpit Commentary — Galatians — Section 24

him countenance and 11upport. Thus, so to speak, clustering around him, they would be likely, especially would they be likely if they were old assooiates of his at Jerusalem or high in Church estimation at home, to bring to bear upon his mind, with reference to the relations between the circumcision and the uncircumcision, an influence which would be antagonistic in its tendency to the influence, for example, of St. Paul and of others who heartily accepted and carried out into practice the principle of the absolute indif- ferency in Christ Jesus of all such outward distinctions. Their influence would tend likewise to neutralize the effect which, but for this, the habit of brotherly association day by day, both in the Church and in private, with spiritually minded Gentile believers, could hardly have failed to produce, in dispelling from his spirit any still lingering remains of the old anti-Hellenic prejudice. It is in this frequent association as an apostle of the Jerusalemite .Church with the members of that Church from time to time visiting .Antioch, that we may probably find the explanation of certain portions of St. Barnabas's behaviour subsequently to his return with St. Paul from the conference at Jerusalem, which, after what we a.re told of his previous history, appear both so painful and so disa.ppointiµg. • The chord of Juda.istic sensibility, which else might have slept silent in his soul, and by continued inaction in time have perished altogether, was, by that no doubt often recurring inter- course with rigorous Mosa.ists from the capital, kept a.live and vibrating. . It was a perilous thing for even this" grey-haired saint,'' this hitherto" surest guide," to permit himself thus to toy with "the old leaven of malignity." For thus it came to pass. that on a. certain occasion, when men standing well with James had come .down from Jerusalem, the Gentile brethren became aware, to their astonishment and indignant grief, tha.t Barnabas, their revered and confided-in teacher , Barnabas, .was allowing himself to be so far overmastered by the treacherous inward sympathy. with Judaical bigotry as at length to think it shame to be seen by those visitors familiarly consorting as heretofore with the uncircumcision, brethren in Christ though they were,-so far, in fact, overmastered, as to be seen, in the wake of, alas ! Cephas, slinking back from that former brotherly association with them which, however, had only embodied in pal- pable action faith in the great cardinal truth of the gospeL Well was it for them, both, and well also for the Christian cause at Antioch, that the fearless, whole-hearted Paul was at hand to unveil to their own selves the unfaithfulness which they were showing to their real inward convictions, and by public rebuke check its hurtful contagion. .Apostleship of Silas. We have now seen that the title of" apostles," in that lower sense of the term in which it denoted Church envoys, was justly applicable both to St. Paul and to St. Barnabas, and also in fact was i,n that.sense given to them. We have next to consider the case of Silas. When he went forth sharing St, Paul's labours in that second great missionary journey of .his recorded in the Acts, did he share with him likewise the right to the title of " apostle " in the sense now assigned to the word ? and was the term in this sense actually used of him ? The answer to these questions is in part contained in the particulars relative to Silas which have been already noted. But it will be convenient to gather all the f11-cts of his case together under one view. The high position which, prior to the conference at Jerusalem, Silas held among the Churchmen of Jerusalem is distinctly attest,ed, by St. Luke (Acts xv.. 12), when he designates JudaB and Silas as" men taking a lead (/ryovµ.lvour) among the brethren." At the conference itself the two men were selected and delegated to bear the missive then agreed upon to" the Gentile brethren in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia," and were ,at the same time directed to corroborate its statements by word of mouth. With J n<las &~bas we have no furt4er CQncern ; after this IUiseion he is altogether lost to  DISSERTATION t. J:llvii