been unanimously conceded, Paul would not have added to his statement about Titus, that not only he himself had not been compelled to give way in this instance, but that his representations had even convinced those who had been Apostles before him, and secured the unanimous adoption of his own views on the point? The whole of this Epistle is a vehement and intensely earnest denunciation of those Judaizers who were pressing the necessity of the initiatory rite upon the Galatian converts.(1) Is it possible that the Apostle could have left totally unmentioned the fact that the Apostles and the very Church of Jerusalem had actually declared circumcision to be unnecessary? It would not have accorded with Paul's character, it is said, to have appealed to the authority of the elder Apostles or of the Church in a matter in which his own apostolic authority and teaching were in question. In that case, bow can it be supposed that he ever went at all up to Jerusalem to the Apostles and elders about this question? If he was not too proud to lay aside his apostolic dignity and, representing the Christians of Antioch, to submit the case to the Council at Jerusalem, and subsequently to deliver its decree to various communities, is it consistent with reason or common sense to assert that he was too proud to recall the decision of that Council to the Christians of Galatia? It must, we think, be obvious that, if such an explanation of Paul's total silence as to the decree be at all valid, it is absolutely fatal to the account of Paul's visit in the Acts. This reasoning is not confined to the Epistle to the Galatians but, as Paley
1 "Turning from Antioch to Galatia, we meet with Judaic
teachers who urged circumcision on the Gentile converts,
and, as the best means of weakening the authority of St.
Paul, asserted for the Apostles of the Circumcision the
exclusive right of dictating to the Church." Lightfoot, Ep.
to the Gal. p. 353.
points out, applies to the other Epistles of Paul, in all of which the same silence is preserved.
Moreover, the apologetic explanation altogether fails upon other grounds. Without appealing to the decree as an authority, we must feel sure that the Apostle would at least have made use of it as a logical refutation of his adversaries. The man who did not hesitate to attack Peter openly for inconsistency, and charge him with hypocrisy, would not have hesitated to cite the decree as evidence, and still less to fling it in the faces of those Judaizers who, so short a time after that decree is supposed to have been promulgated, preached the necessity of circumcision and Mosaic observances in direct opposition to its terms, whilst claiming to represent the views of the very Apostles and Church which had framed it. Paul, who never denies the validity of their claim, would most certainly have taunted them with gross inconsistency and retorted that the Church of Jerusalem, the Apostles, and the Judaizers who now troubled him and preached circumcision and the Mosaic law had, four or five years previously, declared as the deliberate decision of the Holy Spirit and the Council, that they were no longer binding on the Gentile converts. By such a reference "the discussion would have been foreclosed." None of the reasons which are suggested to explain the undeniable fact that there is no mention of the decree can really bear examination, and that fact remains supported by a great many powerful considerations, leading to the very simple explanation which reconciles all difficulties, that the narrative of the Acts is not authentic.
We arrive at the very same results when we examine the Apostle's references to the practices which the conditions of the decree were intended to control. Instead of recognising the authority of the decree, or enforcing its
prescriptions, he does not even allow us to infer its existence, and he teaches disregard at least of some of its restrictions. The decree enjoins the Gentile Christians to abstain from meats offered to idols. Paul tells the Corinthians to eat whatever meat is sold in the shambles without asking questions for conscience sake, for an idol is nothing in the world, "neither if we eat are we the better, nor if we eat not are we the worse."(1) It is not conceivable that the Apostle could so completely have ignored the prohibition of the decree if he had actually submitted the question to the Apostles, and himself so distinctly acquiesced in their decision as to distribute the document amongst the various communities whom he subsequently visited. To argue that the decree was only intended to have force in Antioch, and Syria, and Cilicia, to which, as the locality in which the difficulty had arisen which had originally led to the Council, the decree was, in the first instance, addressed, is highly arbitrary; but, when proceeding further, apologists(2) draw a distinction between those churches "which had already been founded, and which had felt the pressure of Jewish prejudice (Acts xvi. 4)," and "brotherhoods afterwards formed and lying beyond the reach of such influences," as a reason why no notice of the decree is taken in the case of the Corinthians and Romans, the special pleading ignores very palpable facts. "Jewish prejudices" are represented in the Acts of the Apostles themselves as being more than usually strong in Corinth. There was a Jewish synagogue there, augmented probably by the Jews expelled from Rome under Claudius,(3) and their violence against
Paul finally obliged him to leave the place.(1) Living in the midst of an idolatrous city, and much exposed to the temptations of sacrificial feasts, we might naturally expect excessive rigour against participation, on the one hand, and perhaps too great indifference, on the other; and this we actually find to have been the case. It is in consequence of questions respecting meats offered to idols that Paul writes to the Corinthians, and whilst treating the matter in itself as one of perfect indifference, merely inculcates consideration for weak consciences.(2) It is clear that there was a decided feeling against the practice; it is clear that strong Jewish prejudices existed in the Jewish colony at Corinth, and wherever there were Jews the eating of meats offered to idols was an abomination. The sin of Israel at Baalpeor(3) lived in the memory of the people, and abstinence from such pollution(4) was considered a duty. If the existence of such "Jewish prejudices" was a reason for publishing the decree, we have, in fact, more definite evidence of them in Corinth than we have in Antioch, for, apart from this specific mention of the subject of eating sacrificial meats, the two apostolic letters abundantly show the existence and activity of Judaistic parties there, which opposed the work of Paul, and desired to force Mosaic observances upon his converts. It is impossible to admit that, supposing such a decree to have been promulgated as the mind of the Holy Spirit, there could be any reason why it should have been unknown at Corinth so short a time after it was adopted. When, therefore, we find the Apostle not only ignoring it, but actually declaring that to be a matter of indifference, abstinence from which it had just seemed