[442] Barnabas, as the older disciple, still retained precedence in the Jewish church, and hence is named first. A later forger would have reversed the order.

[442] Barnabas, as the older disciple, still retained precedence in the Jewish church, and hence is named first. A later forger would have reversed the order.

[443] Dr. Plumptre remarks against the Tübingen critics (on Acts 15:7): "Of all doctrines as to the development of the Christian church, that which sees in Peter, James, and John the leaders of a Judaizing anti-Pauline party is, perhaps, the most baseless and fantastic. The fact that their names were unscrupulously used by that party, both in their lifetime and, as the pseudo-Clementine Homilies and Recognitions show, after their death, cannot outweigh their own deliberate words and acts."

[444] This is very evident from the indignant tone of Paul against the Judaizers, and from the remark in Acts 15:6: polles suzeteseos genomenes, comp. Acts 15:2: genomenes staseos(factious party spirit, insurrection, Luke 23:19; Mark 15:7) kai zeteseos ouk oliges. Such strong terms show that Luke by no means casts the veil of charity over the differences in the apostolic church.

[445] Gal. 2:3-5. See the note below.

[446] Acts 16:3. The silence of Luke concerning the non-circumcision of Titus has been distorted by the Tübingen critics into a wilful suppression of fact, and the mention of the circumcision of Timothy into a fiction to subserve the catholic unification of Petrinism and Paulinism. What a designing and calculating man this anonymous author of the Acts must have been, and yet not shrewd enough to conceal his literary fraud or to make it more plausible by adapting it to the account in the Galatians, and by mentioning the full understanding between the apostles themselves! The book of Acts is no more a full history of the church or of the apostles than the Gospels are full biographies of Christ.

[447] Comp. Rom. 14 and 15; 1 Cor. 9:19-23; Acts 21:23-26.

[448] Gal. 5:6; 6:15; 1 Cor. 7:19. Dr. Plumptre's remarks on the last passage are to the point: "Often those who regard some ceremony as unimportant magnify the very disregard of it into a necessary virtue. The apostle carefully guards against that by expressing the nothingness of both circumcision and uncircumcision (Rom. 2:25; Gal. 5:6; 6:15). The circumicision of Timothy, and the refusal to circumcise Titus by St. Paul himself, are illustrations at once of the application of the truth here enforced, and of the apostle's scrupulous adherence to the principles of his own teaching. To have refused to circumcise Timothy would have attached some value to noncircumcision. To have circumcised Titus would have attached some value to circumcision."

[449] Acts 15:7-11; comp. Acts 10: 28 sqq.; 1 Pet. 1:12; 5:12; 2 Pet. 3:15, 16. The style of Peter is distinctly recognizable, as in the epithet of God, ho kardiognoste, Acts 15:8, comp. Acts 1:24. Such minute coincidences go to strengthen the documentary trustworthiness of the Acts.

[450] Like the Popes, who do not attend synods at Jerusalem or elsewhere and make speeches, but expect all doctrinal controversies to be referred to them for their final and infallible decision.

[451] Acts15:11: tes charitos tou kuriou Iesou pisteuomen sothen'ai, kath' hon tropon kakeinoi (the heathen). Comp. Rom. 10:12, 13.

[452] Comp. Acts15:13-21; 21:18-25; James 1:25; 2:12; and the account of Hegesippus quoted in § 27, p. 274.

[453] The Gentile form of greeting, chairein, Acts 15:23, occurs again in James 1:1, but nowhere else in the New Testament, except in the letter of the heathen, Claudius Lysias (Acts 23:26); the usual form being charis kai eirene. This is likewise one of those incidental coincidences and verifications which are beyond the ken of a forger.

[454] According to the oldest reading, hoi apostoloi kai hoi presbuteroi adelphoi, which may also be rendered: "the apostles, and the presbyters, brethren;" comp. Acts 15:22. The omission of adelphoi in some MSS. may be due to the later practice, which excluded the laity from synodical deliberations.

[455] Acts 15:23-29.

[456] Acts 16:4

[457] Acts 21:15. Comp. also Rev. 2:14, 20. But why does Paul never refer to this synodical decree? Because he could take a knowledge of it for granted, or more probably because he did not like altogether its restrictions, which were used by the illiberal constructionists against him and against Peter at Antioch (Gal. 2:12). Weizsäcker and Grimm (l.c., p. 423) admit the historic character of some such compromise, but transfer it to a later period (Acts 21:25), as a proposition made by James of a modus vivendi with Gentile converts, and arbitrarily charge the Acts with an anachronism. But the consultation must have come to a result, the result embodied in a formal action, and the action communicated to the disturbed churches.

[458] Justin Martyr, about the middle of the second century, considered the eating of eidolothuta as bad as idolatry. Dial. c. Tryph. Jud. 35

[459] Ex. 34:,15; Lev. 17:7 sqq.; Deut. 12:23 sqq. The reason assigned for the prohibition of the taste of blood is that "the life of the flesh is in the blood," and the pouring out of blood is the means of "the atonement for the soul" (Lev. 17:11). The prohibition of blood as food was traced back to the time of Noah, Gen. 9:4, and seems to have been included in the seven "Noachian commandments" so-called, which were imposed upon the proselytes of the gate, although the Talmud nowhere specifies them very clearly. The Moslems likewise abhor the tasting of blood. But the Greeks and Romans regarded it as a delicacy. It was a stretch of liberality on the part of the Jews that pork was not included among the forbidden articles of food. Bentley proposed to read in Acts 15:20 porkeia (fromporkos, porcus) for porneia, but without a shadow of evidence.

[460] 1 Cor. 8:7-13; 10:23-33; Rom. 14:2, 21; 1 Tim. 4:4.

[461] The word por'neia, without addition, must be taken in its usual sense, and cannot mean illegitimate marriages alone, which were forbidden to the Jews, Ex. 34; Lev. 18, although it may include them

[462] Apoc. 2:14, 20.

[463] 1 Cor. 6:13-20; comp. 1 Cor. 5:9; 1 Thess. 4:4, 5; Eph. 5:3, 5; Col. 3:5. What a contrast between these passages and the sentence of Micio in Terence. "Non es flagitium, mihi crede, adulescentulum Scortari, neque potare."--Adelph. i. 2. 21, 22. (Ed. Fleckeisen p. 290.) To which, however, Demea (his more virtuous married brother) replies: "Pro Juppiter, tu homo adigis me ad insaniam. Non est flagitium facere haec adulescentulum?"--Adelph. i. 2. 31, 32

[464] Acts 15:21; comp. Acts 13:15; 2 Cor. 3:14, 15.

[465] Acts 21:20-25. Irenaeus understood the decree in this sense (Adv. Haer III. 12, 15: "Hi qui circa Jacobum apostoli gentibus quidem libere agere permittebant; ipsi vero ... perseverabant in pristinis observationibus ... religiose agebant circadispositionem legis quae est secundum Mosem."Pfleiderer (l.c. 284) takes a similar view on this point, which is often overlooked, and yet most important for the proper understanding of the subsequent reaction. He says: "Die Judenchristen betreffend, wurde dabei stillschweigend als selbstverständliche Voraussetzung angenommen, dass bei diesen Alles beim Alten bleibe, dass also aus der Gesetzesfreiheit der Heidenchristen keierlei Consequenzen für die Abrogation des Gesetzes unter den Judenchristen zu ziehen seien; auf dieser Voraussetzung beruhte die Beschränkung der älteren Apostel auf die Wirksamkeit bei den Juden (da eine Ueberschreitung dieser Schranke ohne Verletzung des Gesetzes nicht möglich war); auf dieser Voraussetzung beruhte die Sendung der Leute von Jakobus aus Jerusalem nach Antiochia und beruhte der Einfluss derselben auf Petrus, dessen vorhergegangenes freieres Verhalten dadurch als eine Ausnahme von der Regel gekennzeichnet wird."