clearly implies that his Apostolic office and labours were well known and recognised before this conference. Still more serious objections lie against identifying it with any later visit in the Acts-the fourth for instance. It is perhaps a sufficient answer to such a solution, that St Paul's connexion with Barnabas seems to have ceased before. A more fatal difficulty still would be his silence respecting the third visit, so marked with incidents, and so pregnant with consequences bearing directly on the subject of which he is treating. II. On the other hand the identification adopted involves various diffi- Objections culties, which however, when weighed, do not seem sufficient to turn the answered. scale. These difficulties are of two classes: (i) Discrepancies appearing to exist between the two narratives. (i) Discre On the whole however the circumstances of the writers and the different pancies. purposes of the narrators seem sufficient to explain the divergences, real or apparent, in the two accounts: and the remarks made in comparing the two records of the former visit apply with even more force to this (see p. 91). The alleged discrepancies are these: (a) In the Acts St Paul is represented as sent to Jerusalem by the (a) Motive Christians of Antioch to settle some disputes which had arisen there: in of the journey. the Epistle he states that he went up by revelation. Here however there is no contradiction. The historian naturally records the external impulse, which led to the mission: the Apostle himself states his inward motive. 'What I did,' he says, 'I did not owing to circumstances, not as yielding to pressure, not in deference to others, but because the Spirit of God told me it was right.' The very stress which he lays on this revelation seems to show that other influences were at work. The following parallel cases suggest how the one motive might supplement the other. (a) In Acts ix. 29, 30, it is said, 'They went about to slay him, which when the brethren knew, they brought him down to Cæsarea, and sent him forth to Tarsus.' St Paul's own account of this incident, Acts xxii. 17 sq., is as follows: 'While I prayed in the temple I was in a trance, and saw him saying unto me, Make haste and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem, for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me, etc.' (3) In Acts xiii. 2—4 the mission of Paul and Barnabas is attributed both to the Holy Spirit and to the Church of Antioch: "The Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them; and when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away (áméλvoav). So they being sent forth by the Holy Ghost (ἐκπεμφθέντες ὑπὸ τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος) etc. (y) Acts xv. 28, 'It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us.' (b) St Paul speaks of his communications as made to the Apostles in (b) Chaprivate: St Luke's narrative describes a general congress of the Church. The divergence is due to the different aims of the two writers. St Paul is dwelling on what he owed or did not owe to the Twelve. St Luke de racter of the conferences. (c) Relations of St Paul with the Twelve. scribes the results as affecting the interests of the Church at large. St Paul mentions or rather alludes to the private history which led to the public transactions, the secret springs, as it were, which set the machinery in motion. This history can have been but partially known to St Luke, nor did it lie within his province to record it. But in fact, while each narrative thus presents a different aspect of this chapter of history, each also contains indications that the other aspect was recoguised, though not dwelt upon, by the writer. The very form of St Paul's expression, ἀνεθέμην αὐτοῖς, κατ ̓ ἰδίαν δὲ τοῖς δοκοῦσιν, implies something besides the private conference; the transactions themselves— the dispute about Titus for instance-involved more or less of publicity: the purpose sought to be attained could scarcely be effected in any other way and the fragmentary character of the Apostle's account leaves ample space for the insertion of other incidents besides those given. On the other hand St Luke alludes in a general way to conferences and discussions preceding the congress (xv. 4, 5, 6): and the speeches there delivered, the measures there proposed, are plainly the result of much wise forethought and patient deliberation on the part of the Apostles. (c) Again, it is said, the account of St Luke leaves the impression of perfect and unbroken harmony between St Paul and the Twelve; while St Paul's narrative betrays, or seems to betray, signs of dissatisfaction with their counsels. In the Acts the leading Apostles of the Circumcision stand forth as the champions of Gentile liberty: the writer of the Epistle on the other hand implies or appears to imply, that they owed to himself and Barnabas alone their emancipation from the bondage sought to be imposed upon them. But here again the difficulty diminishes, when we try to picture to ourselves what was likely to have been the course of events. The articles of the so-called Apostolic Council were 'Articles of Peace.' To infringe no principle and yet to quiet opposition, to concede as much as would satisfy the one party and not enough to press heavily on the other-this was the object to be attained. Thus the result was a compromise. Long discussions, many misgivings, some differences of opinion, must have arisen on a question so delicate and yet so momentous; and though the unanimity of the final decision was indeed the prompting of the Holy Ghost, it would be not less contrary to all analogies of the Apostolic history, than to all human experience, to suppose that no error or weakness or prejudice had revealed itself in the process. It would seem moreover, that by the time the congress met, St Paul's work was already done. His large experience gained in contact with the Gentile Churches had told upon the Twelve. If they hesitated at first, as they may have done, they hesitated now no longer. Opinions in favour of liberal measures towards the Gentiles would come with more force from the leading Apostles of the Circumcision. His own voice raised in their cause might only inflame the passions of the bigoted and prejudice the result. So we find that when the council meets, Paul and Barnabas confine themselves to narrating the success of their labours among the Gentiles. As regards the matter under dispute they are en(ii) Omis- tirely passive. sions. (ii) More startling at first sight than these apparent discrepancies are the direct omissions of St Paul, on the supposition that he is speaking of the visit of Acts xv. (a) Above all, how comes it, that while enumerating his visits to Jeru- (a) 2nd salem, St Paul should mention the first and third, and pass over the second visit to recorded in the Acts? The answer is to be sought in the circumstances under which that visit was paid. The storm of persecution had broken over the Church of Jerusalem. One leading Apostle had been put to death; another rescued by a miracle had fled for his life. At this season of terror and confusion Paul and Barnabas arrived. It is probable that every Christian of rank had retired from the city. No mention is made of the Twelve; the salutations of the Gentile Apostles are received by 'The Elders.' They arrived charged with alms for the relief of the poor brethren of Judæa. Having deposited these in trustworthy hands, they would depart with all convenient speed. Any lengthened stay might endanger their lives. Nor indeed was there any motive for remaining. Even had St Paul purposed holding conferences with the Apostles or the Church of the Circumcision, at this moment of dire distress it would have been impossible1. Of this visit then, so brief and so hurried, he makes no mention here. His object is not to enumerate his journeys to Jerusalem, but to define his relations with the Twelve; and on these relations it had no bearing. Jerusalem. (b) The omission of all mention of the Apostolic decree is a less con- (b) The siderable difficulty. The purport of the decree itself, and the form of Apostolic opposition which St Paul encountered in Galatia, sufficiently explain his silence2. (1) The provisions of this decree seem to have been, as I have already mentioned, 'Articles of Peace.' The Apostolic letter was only addressed to the Gentile brethren 'in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia' (xv. 23), that is, to the churches more directly in communication with Palestine, and therefore materially affected by the state of feeling and practice among the Jewish Christians. There is no reason for supposing that the decree was intended to be permanent and universal. It was drawn up to meet a special emergency, and its enactments accordingly are special. The Gentile Apostles seem to have delivered it scrupulously in those churches which had been already founded and which had felt the pressure of Jewish 1 St Luke dismisses this visit in a very few words; xi. 30 ἀποστείλαντες πρὸς τοὺς πρεσβυτέρους διὰ χειρὸς Βαρνάβα καὶ Σαύλου, xii. 25 Βαρνάβας δὲ καὶ Σαῦλος ὑπέστρεψαν ἐξ Ιερουσαλήμ, πληρώσαντες τὴν διακονίαν, συμπαραλαβόντες Ἰωάννην τὸν ἐπικληθέντα ΜάρKOV. It seems probable then that all the Apostles, perhaps even James, were away. Of Peter this is all but directly stated, xii. 17. This inference accords with an ancient tradition, that twelve years was the limit of time prescribed by our Lord for the Apostles to remain at Jerusalem. It is mentioned 2 Paley has some good remarks on decree. prejudice (Acts xvi. 4). But in the brotherhoods afterwards formed and lying beyond the reach of such influences, no notice was taken of it. St Paul's instructions for instance to the Corinthians and to the Romans1 entirely ignore one of its provisions, the prohibition against eating meats offered to idols. He speaks of this as a matter of indifference in itself, only important as it affected each man's conscience. (2) The object of the decree was to relieve the Gentile Christians from the burden of Jewish observances. It said, 'Concede so much and we will protect you from any further exactions.' The Galatians sought no such protection. They were willing recipients of Judaic rites; and St Paul's object was to show them, not that they need not submit to these burdens against their will, but that they were wrong and sinful in submitting to them. (3) The power of the Apostles of the Circumcision, and the precedence of the mother Church, had been unduly and exclusively exalted by the Judaizers in Galatia at the expense of St Paul's authority. The Epistle to the Galatians is from beginning to end a protest against these exaggerated claims. He refuses to acknowledge any human interference, he takes his stand throughout upon his direct commission from the Lord. By appealing to a decree of a Council held at Jerusalem for sanction on a point on which his own decision as an Apostle was final, he would have made the very concession which his enemies insisted upon2. The inci Patristic accounts of the collision at Antioch. The conduct of St Peter at Antioch has been a great stumblingblock dent is ex- both in ancient and modern times. It has been thought strange that the plained by St Peter's very Apostle, to whom was specially vouchsafed the revelation that there is character. nothing common or unclean, and who only a short time before this meet ing at Antioch had declared himself plainly in favour of Gentile liberty, should have acted in a manner so inconsistent with all that had gone before. Accordingly some have sought to wrest St Paul's language here, and others have denied the accuracy of the narrative in the Acts. But in fact St Peter's character, as it is drawn in the Gospels, explains every difficulty. 1 I Cor. x. 27 sq., Rom. xiv. 2 sq. 2 The accounts of this crisis in the portant recent works will be given in the notes to the dissertation on 'St Paul and the Three.' Since the 1st edition of this volume was published I have read the articles of Reuss, La Conférence de Jérusalem, in the Nouvelle Revue de Théologie, XII. p. 324, XII. p. 62. Though they contain many things with which I cannot agree, I gladly recognise the spirit of fairness in which they are written. It is at least no surprise, that he who at one moment declared himself ready to lay down his life for his Lord's sake and even drew his sword in defence of his Master, and the next betrayed Him with a thrice repeated denial, should have acted in this case, as we infer he acted from the combined accounts of St Luke and St Paul. There is the same impulsive courage followed by the same shrinking timidity. And though St Paul's narrative stops short of the last scene in this drama, it would not be rash to conclude that it ended as the other had ended, that the revulsion of feeling was as sudden and complete, and that again he went out and wept bitterly, having denied his Lord in the person of these Gentile converts. pon. The history of the patristic interpretations of this passage is painfully Becomes a instructive. The orthodox fathers of the early Church were sore pressed controversial weaboth by heretics and unbelievers. On the one hand Ebionite writers, like the author of the Clementines, made it a ground for a personal attack on St Paul1. On the other, extreme Gnostics such as Marcion used it to prove the direct antagonism of Christianity to Judaism as represented by the opposition of the Gentile to the Jewish Apostle2. And lastly, Porphyry and other writers availed themselves of the incident as an engine of assault on Christianity itself, impuguing the characters of both Apostles in language which the fathers describe as coarse and blasphemous 3. How were these diverse attacks to be met? Tertullian, arguing against the Marcionites, resisted all temptations to wrest the plain meaning of the passage. Cyprian and Ambrose moreover took it in its obvious sense". The same is done also by the commentators Victorinus and Hilary. But the majority of early writers fell into the snare. Two disingenuous expla- Solutions nations were put forward to meet the attacks of heretics and unbelievers; proposed each originating, it would appear, in one of the great fathers of Alexandria, by and dividing between them the allegiance of subsequent writers. 1. Clement of Alexandria maintained that the Cephas here mentioned (i) Clewas not the Apostle Peter, but one of the seventy disciples bearing the ment. same name. Though the passage itself absolutely excludes such a view, it nevertheless found several adherents, and is mentioned by Eusebius® with 1 See above, p. 61, and the notes ii. 11, 13. 2 Tertull. adv. Marc. i. 20, v. 3, de Praescr. c. 23: comp. Iren. iii. 12. 15. See esp. Hieron. in Ep. ad Gal. praef. (vII. p. 371, ed. Vallarsi) Volens et illi maculam erroris inurere et huic procacitatis, et in commune ficti dogmatis accusare mendacium, dum inter se ecclesiarum principes discrepent,' and p. 410. See the passages of Tertullian referred to, note 2. Augustin. ap. Hieron. Op. 1. Epist. cxvi. The passage in Cyprian, to which Augustine appears to refer, is in Epist. lxxi. At the Council of Car thage too (held under Cyprian), 'Zosi- Euseb. H.E. i. 12, referring to the |