Not Paul, but Jesus

by Jeremy Bentham

At Jerusalem, for the taking or performance of a vow, a man was received into the temple:—a district more extensive by far, it appears, than the district called Rules of the King's Bench at London: from the account given by Lewis, as well as by this,—it appears that, on every such occasion, fees were taken by the priests. As to the four men here in question—having already, as it is stated, a vow on them, but nothing as yet done in consequence,—it looks as if it had been by poverty that they had hitherto been kept from the accomplishment of their purpose: on which supposition, Paul being the head of a considerable party, and as such having a command of money,—part of the recommendation seems to have been—that, to acquire the reputation of liberality, he should open his purse to these his proposed companions, and pay their fees.

On the occasion here in question, whatsoever was the purpose and intended effect of the ceremony, what appears from verse 27, Acts 27, is—that seven days were regarded as necessary for the accomplishment of it: no mention of this in Lewis.

On this occasion, by the author of the Acts, once more is mentioned the conciliatory decree of the Apostles and Elders. Still, not a syllable about it is to be found in any Epistle of Saint Paul, or in any other of the Apostolical Epistles that have come down to us.

Humanly speaking,—in what motives, in what circumstances, in what considerations, shall we say, that the causes, final and efficient, of this temperament—this mezzo termino—this middle course—are to be found? The answer that presents itself is as follows:

Two stumbling-blocks were to be steered clear of:—the scruples of the Jewish converts, and the refractoriness of the Gentiles. So far as regarded abstinence from idolatrous feasts, and from meat with the whole blood in it, killed and dressed in a manner other than that in practice among the Jews,—conformity, it was judged, need not be dispensed of, at the hands of the Gentiles: and, so long as they would be content with meat killed and dressed after the Jewish mode,—the Jewish teachers might, without giving offence to their Jewish converts, have the convenience of partaking of the tables of the Gentile converts. As to the rest—the endless train of habitual observances, by which so large a portion of a man's life was occupied and tormented, neither these permanent plagues, nor the initiatory plague of circumcision, though the affair of a minute, and performed once for all, were found endurable: neither upon himself nor upon his children would a man submit to have it practiced.

After all, if the author of the Acts is to be believed,—it was by the Jews of Asia, and not by those of Jerusalem, that, at Jerusalem, the tumult was raised, by which this purification of Paul's was rendered incomplete, and his stay at Jerusalem cut short: he being removed for trial to Rome; at which place the history leaves him and concludes.

Of the behaviour observed by the Jerusalem Christians, on that occasion—Apostles, Elders, Deacons and ordinary brethren all together—nothing is said. Yet, of these there were many thousands on the spot, Acts 21:20: all of them of course informed of the place—the holy place,—in which, at the recommendation of the Elders, Paul had stationed himself. By the Jews of Asia were "all the people on this occasion stirred up," Acts 21:27: yet, among so many thousands, no protection, nor any endeavour to afford him protection, for aught that appears, did he experience. Yet Asia it was, that had been, to the exclusion of Judaea, the theatre of his labours: from Asia it was, that the train of attendants he brought with him, were come—were come with him to these brethren—"the brethren,"—as if it had been said, all the brethren,—by whom, according to the author of the Acts, they were "received so gladly."

At this period ends all that, on the present occasion, it will be necessary to say, of this last recorded visit to Jerusalem. Of the two inconsistent accounts said to have been given by him of his conversion—one to the Jerusalem mob, the other to King Agrippa—full notice has been taken under the head of his conversion: of the miracles ascribed to him at Malta, mention is here made, in the chapter allotted to the history of his supposed miracles. Of any other subsequent acts or sayings of his, no notice will require to be taken in this place. The matter here in question has been—the sort of relation, stated as having had place, between this self-constituted Apostle, and those who beyond controversy were constituted such by, and lived as such with, Jesus himself: and to this have incidentally been added the causes, which have continually been presenting themselves, for suspicion, in respect of the verity and authenticity, or both, of the history, which, under the name of the Acts of the Apostles, has come down to us, connected by the operations of the bookbinder, in the same volume with the several histories of the four Evangelists, and the Epistles—not only of Paul himself but of others among the Apostles; and with the work styled, as if in derision, "The Revelations."