and turn to God," &c. However this may be, the statement of Paul does not admit the interpretation of such public ministry. His express purpose in going to Jerusalem was, not to preach, but to make the acquaintance of Peter; and it was a marked characteristic of Paul to avoid preaching in ground already occupied by the other Apostles before him.(1) Not only is the account in Acts apparently excluded by such considerations and by the general tenor of the epistle, but it is equally so by the direct words of the Apostle (i. 22):—"I was unknown by face unto the churches of Judaea." It is argued that the term: "churches of Judæa" excludes Jerusalem.(2) It might possibly be asserted with reason that such an expression as "the churches of Jerusalem" might exclude the churches of Judæa, but to say that the Apostle, writing elsewhere to the Galatians of a visit to Jerusalem, and of his conduct at that time, intends, when speaking of the "churches of Judæa," to exclude the principal city, seems to us arbitrary and unwarrantable. The whole object of the Apostle is to show the privacy of his visit and his independence of the elder Apostles. He does not use the expression as a contrast to Jerusalem. Nothing in his account leads one to think of any energetic preaching during the visit, and the necessity of finding some way of excluding Jerusalem from the Apostle's expression is simply thrust upon apologists by the account in Acts. Two passages are referred to as supporting the exclusion of Jerusalem from "the churches of Judaea." In John iii. 22, we read: "After
these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judæa." In the preceding chapter he is described as being at Jerusalem. We have already said enough about the geographical notices of the author of the fourth Gospel.(1) Even those who do not admit that he was not a native of Palestine are agreed that he wrote in another country and for foreigners. "The land of Judæa," was therefore a natural expression superseding the necessity of giving a more minute local indication which would have been of little use. The second instance appealed to, though more doubtfully,(2) is Heb. xiii. 24: "They from Italy salute you." We are at a loss to understand how this is supposed to support the interpretation adopted. It is impossible that if Paul went in and out with the Apostles, preached boldly in Jerusalem, and disputed with the Hellenistic Jews, not to speak of what is added, Acts xxvi. 19 f., he could say that he was unknown by face to the churches of Judæa. There is nothing, we may remark, which limits his preaching to the Grecian Jews. Whilst apologists maintain that the two accounts are reconcilable, many of them frankly admit that the account in Acts requires correction from that in the Epistle;(3) but, on the other hand, a still greater number of critics prouounce the narrative in the Acts contradictory to the statements of Paul.(4)
There remains another point upon which a few remarks must be made. In Acts ix. 29 f. the cause of Paul's hurriedly leaving Jerusalem is a plot of the Grecian Jews to kill him. Paul does not in the Epistle refer to any such matter, but, in another part of the Acts, Paul is represented as relating, xxii. 17 f.: "And it came to pass, that, when I returned to Jerusalem and was praying 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 witness concerning me," &c, &c. This account differs, therefore, even from the previous narrative in the same book, yet critics are agreed that the visit during which the Apostle is said to have seen this vision was that which we are discussing.(1) The writer is so little a historian working from substantial facts that he forgets the details of his own previous statements; and in the account of the conversion of Paul, for instance, he thrice repeats the story with emphatic and irreconcilable contradictions. We have already observed his partiality for visions, and such supernatural agency is so ordinary a matter with him that, in the first account of this visit, he altogether omits the vision, although he must have known of it then quite as much as on the second occasion. The Apostle, in his authentic and solemn account of this visit, gives no hint of any vision, and leaves no suggestion even of that public preaching which is described in the earlier, and referred to in the later, narrative in the Acts.(2) If we
had no other grounds for rejecting the account as unhistorical this miraculous vision, added as an after-thought, would have warranted our doing so.
Passing on now to the second chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians, we find that Paul writes:—"Then, after fourteen years, again I went up to Jerusalem..." [———]. He states the particulars of what took place upon the occasion of this second visit with a degree of minuteness which ought, one might have supposed, to have left no doubt of its identity, when compared with the same visit historically described elsewhere; but such are the discrepancies between the two accounts that, as we have already mentioned, the controversy upon the point has been long and active.(1) The Acts, it will be remembered, relate a second visit of Paul to Jerusalem, after that which we have discussed, upon which occasion it is stated (xi. 30) that he was sent with Barnabas to convey to the community, during a time of famine, the contributions of the Church of Antioch. The third visit of the Acts is that (xv.) when Paul and Barnabas are said to have been deputed to confer with the Apostles regarding the
