III. Three Apostles THREE besides St Paul prominent. The four meet toge- ST PAUL AND THE THREE. THREE and three only of the personal disciples and immediate followers of our Lord hold any prominent place in the Apostolic records-James, Peter, and John; the first the Lord's brother, the two latter the foremost members of the Twelve. Apart from an incidental reference to the death of James the son of Zebedee, which is dismissed in a single sentence, the rest of the Twelve are mentioned by name for the last time on the day of the Lord's Ascension. Thenceforward they disappear wholly from the canonical writings. And this silence also extends to the traditions of succeeding ages. We read indeed of St Thomas in India, of St Andrew in Scythia; but such scanty notices, even if we accept them as trustworthy, show only the more plainly how little the Church could tell of her earliest teachers. Doubtless they laboured zealously and effectively in the spread of the Gospel; but, so far as we know, they have left no impress of their individual mind and character on the Church at large. Occupying the foreground, and indeed covering the whole canvas of early ecclesiastical history, appear four figures alone, St Paul and the three Apostles of the Circumcision. Once and, it would appear, not more than once, these four great teachers met together face to face. It was the one great crisis in the history of the Church, on the issue of which was staked her future progress and triumph. Was she to open her doors wide and receive all comers, to declare her legitimate boundaries coextensive with the limits of the human race? Or was she to remain for ever narrow and sectarian, a national institution at best, but most probably a suspected minority even in her own nation? by this Not less important, so far as we can see, was the question at issue, when Paul and Barnabas arrived at Jerusalem to confer with the Apostles of the Circumcision on the subject of the Mosaic ritual which then distracted the youthful Church. It must therefore be an intensely interesting study to watch the attitude of the four great leaders of the Church at this crisis, merely as a historical lesson. But the importance of the subject does not rest here. Ques- Questions suggested tions of much wider interest are suggested by the accounts of this conference: What degree of coincidence or antagonism between meeting. Jewish and Gentile converts may be discerned in the Church? What were the relations existing between St Paul and the Apostles of the Circumcision? How far do the later sects of Ebionites on the one hand and Marcionites on the other, as they appear in direct antagonism in the second century, represent opposing principles cherished side by side within the bosom of the Church and sheltering themselves under the names, or (as some have ventured to say) sanctioned by the authority, of the leading Apostles? What in fact is the secret history-if there be any secret history-of the origin of Catholic Christianity? ance of the Galatian Epistle. On this battle-field the most important of recent theological con- Importtroversies has been waged: and it is felt by both sides that the Epistle to the Galatians is the true key to the position. In the first place, it is one of the very few documents of the Apostolic ages, whose genuineness has not been seriously challenged by the opponents of revelation. Moreover, as the immediate utterance of one who himself took the chief part in the incidents recorded, it cannot be discredited as having passed through a coloured medium or gathered accretions by lapse of time. And lastly, the very form in which the information is conveyed-by partial and broken allusions rather than by direct and continuous statement-raises it beyond the reach of suspicion, even where suspicion is most active. Here at least both combatants can take their stand on common ground. Apology for this essay. Proposed sketch of the relations of Jewish and Gentile Christians. Three Nor need the defenders of the Christian faith hesitate to accept the challenge of their opponents and try the question on this issue. If it be only interpreted aright, the Epistle to the Galatians ought to present us with a true, if only a partial, solution of the problem. Thus the attempt to decipher the relations between Jewish and Gentile Christianity in the first ages of the Church is directly suggested by this epistle; and indeed any commentary would be incomplete which refused to entertain the problem. This must be my excuse for entering upon a subject, about which so much has been written and which involves so many subsidiary questions. It will be impossible within my limits to discuss all these questions in detail. The objections, for instance, which have been urged against the genuineness of a large number of the canonical and other early Christian writings, can only be met indirectly. Reasonable men will hardly be attracted towards a theory which can only be built on an area prepared by this wide clearance of received documents. At all events there is, I think, no unfairness in stating the case thus; that, though they are supported by arguments drawn from other sources, the general starting-point of such objections is the theory itself. If then a fair and reasonable account can be given both of the origin and progress of the Church generally, and of the mutual relations of its more prominent teachers, based on these documents assumed as authentic, a general answer will be supplied to all objections of this class. I purpose therefore to sketch in outline the progressive history of the relations between the Jewish and Gentile converts in the early ages of the Church, as gathered from the Apostolic writings, aided by such scanty information as can be got together from other sources. This will be a fit and indeed a necessary introduction to the subject with which the Epistle to the Galatians is more directly concerned, the positions occupied by St Paul and the three Apostles of the Circumcision respectively. This history falls into three periods which mark three distinct divisions stages in its progress: (1) The Extension of the Church to the Gen main tiles; (2) The Recognition of Gentile Liberty; (3) The Emancipa- of this tion of the Jewish Churches1. subject. Church of lem. It appears from the Apostolic history that the believers in the The early earliest days conformed strictly to Jewish customs in their religious Jerusa life, retaining the fixed hours of prayer, attending the temple worship and sacrifices, observing the sacred festivals. The Church was still confined to one nation and had not yet broken loose from the national rites and usages. But these swathing bands, which were perhaps needed to support its infancy, would only cripple its later growth, and must be thrown off, if it was ever to attain to a healthy maturity. This emancipation then was the great problem which the Apostles had to work out. The Master Himself had left no express Our Lord's instructions. He had charged them, it is true, to preach the Gospel teaching. to all nations, but how this injunction was to be carried out, by what changes a national Church must expand into an universal Church, they had not been told. He had indeed asserted the sovereignty of the spirit over the letter; He had enunciated the great principleas wide in its application as the law itself—that 'Man was not made for the sabbath, but the sabbath for man'; He had pointed to the fulfilment of the law in the Gospel. So far He had discredited the law, but He had not deposed or abolished it. It was left to the Apostles themselves under the guidance of the Spirit, moulded by circumstances and moulding them in turn, to work out this great change. 1 Important works treating of the relation between the Jewish and Gentile Christians are Lechler's Apostolisches und Nachapostolisches Zeitalter (2te aufl. 1857), and Ritschl's Entstehung der Altkatholischen Kirche (2te aufl. 1857). I am indebted to both these works, but to the latter especially, which is very able and suggestive. Ritschl should be read in his second edition, in which with a noble sacrifice of consistency to |