21.
“Him [Timothy] would Paul have to go with him, and took and circumcised him because of the Jews which were in those quarters” (Acts xvi, 3).
“Thou seest, brother [Paul], how many thousands of Jews there are which believe, and they are all zealous of the law.... Do therefore this that we say to thee: We have four men which have a vow on them; them take and purify thyself with them. Then Paul took the men, and the next day purifying himself with them entered into the temple” (Acts xxi, 20–26).
Paul rebuked Peter for his hypocrisy. But if he practiced circumcision, and took the vow of a Nazarite, as claimed, he was a greater hypocrite than Peter; for Saul the Jew was not more violently opposed to the religion of Christ than Paul the Christian was to the religion of the Jews. That he was addicted to hypocrisy and dissimulation is shown by the following admissions in his genuine epistles:
“Being crafty I caught you with guile” (2 Cor. xii, 16).
“Unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews” (1 Cor. ix, 20).
“I am made all things to all men” (22).