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however, that this demand was not put forward, as at Antioch, on the theory that they could not otherwise be saved. The practical demand was the same, and was so strongly pressed that the decision was postponed to another meeting, in which again a long discussion took place without result. Since the extreme thesis of the disturbers at Antioch was not put forward here, there must have been other weighty grounds which induced no inconsiderable portion of the Church to press for the subjection of the Gentiles to the Mosaic law_apparently based on the idea that the law was God's ordinance for the lives of men far more universally than merely among the Jews.
It was Peter, the head of the Church of the Circumcision, who silenced this party by the unequivocal declaration of the principle of salvation by grace alone through faith. He ap- 4. The pealed, as to something thej' all knew, Outcome, to the fact that God had long before Four Pro- proclaimed salvation by his ministry hibitions. to Cornelius and his household; he declared that the people of God in Israel had not been able to bear the law as a means of salvation, but were equally dependent with the Gentiles upon divine grace, showing that this fundamental principle would be endangered if they insisted upon the observance of the law. This argument reduced the opposition to silence; no one was willing to attack the truth that salvation was to be obtained without the law through faith. The time was now ripe for Barnabas and Paul to show how God had attested their ministry by signs and wonders, which proved also their apostolic independence (ci. II Cor. xii. 12). The final verdict was rendered by James, showing that the prophets had foreshadowed the upbuilding of a Church without the law, and proposing instead of its enforcement to emphasize four prohibitions, which are connected with the rules laid down in Lev. xvii. and xviii. equally for the children of Israel and for the strangers sojourning among them, as also with those imposed by later Jewish tradition on the " proselytes of the gate"; they are possibly nothing but these rules in the form in which they were observed among proselytes in the apostolic times, in the districts here affected (Syria and Cilicia). They are derived originally from the Mosaic law, and forbid what to the Jewish ethical consciousness was highly offensive. Neither of these points is made, however, but they are forbidden as things in themselves morally reprehensible — their prohibition is necessary in order to separate Gentile morality from Gentile immorality and superstition. By the word " fornication " (Gk. porneia) is signified the unrestricted sexual intercourse which was practically tolerated in the heathen world. The words " to abstain from meats offered to idols " refer to both private and public meals on the flesh of the victims of sacrifices, which connected the social life of the people with pagan worship. The prohibition of " blood " and " things strangled," while not so easily understood, may be taken to stamp with disapproval the habits in
regard to food which prevailed among barbarous tribes, but were rejected by the more civilized Greeks and Romans, though they must have been known among the populations to whom the first recipients of the letter belonged. In a word, the whole purpose of the decree was to mark off by a sharp line of division the life of the Gentile Christians from that of the heathen around them.
The account in the Acts has been assailed by
numerous critics as a more or less consciously
biased presentation of the real story,
5. Alleged as it may be taken from Gal. ii.
Contradic- The accusations are mainly these: tion be- the account in Acts minimizes the
tween Acts fundamental opposition which existed and Gal. ii. between Paul and the Jerusalem Church by ascribing to the latter a Pauline standpoint which it had not; the account gives as a result of the Council a limitation of the Gentiles' liberty and equal title to which Paul could never have consented; in defiance of history, it attributes to Paul a position of subordination to the Jerusalem apostles. The first point scarcely needs further discussion after what has been said. The Pauline expressions in Gal. ii. must be taken in connection with the explanatory preface in chap. i. His Galatian opponents asserted that his preaching to the Gentiles needed correction and completion, supporting this by the statement that he had formerly subordinated himself to the Twelve. He appeals to the superhuman origin of his mission and the fact that he had sought no confirmation of his gospel from men, not even from the Twelve (Gal. i. 11-20). But with verse 21 another point of view begins; the remaining verses are written to demonstrate that no relation existed between him and the Palestinian Christianity, the older apostles, which would give his opponents any right to appeal to them against him. When in Gal. ii. 1 he mentions going up to Jerusalem fourteen years later, it is in order to demonstrate that after so long a time the original concord remains undisturbed. The situation is thus exactly that described in Acts xv. What Paul designates " that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles " is the very thing opposed by the disturbers and brought up in Jerusalem. In both cases uncertainty exists as to the position of Jerusalem toward it, and certainty is sought. In both Paul appears with Barnabas; and if he mentions that he took with him Titus, who was uncircumcised (meaning thereby to test the attitude of the Jerusalem Church toward Gentile Christians), Luke also relates that certain of the Gentile converts from Antioch were sent with him. Paul is stating facts to repel a personal attack on himself; Luke mentions the matter in its bearing on the history of the Church as a whole. Thus there was no need to mention in the Acts the revelation which (in addition to the desire of the community) decided Paul's journey, while Paul speaks of it apparently to emphasize the importance of the proceeding. That Paul omits any notice of the decree is not surprising when one considers that its purpose was not in any way to limit the freedom of the Gentiles from the law, and that he had no motive to enter
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