Supernatural Religion Volume III Part 16

8,13, Luke i. 12, xxiv. 38, elsewhere thirteen times. [------] is not found elsewhere, but the preference of our writer for compounds of [------], and [------] is marked, and of these consists a large proportion of his [------], Acts 15, Luke 14 times, and frequently elsewhere; the phrase [------], may be compared with xiv. 22, [------], cf. xiv. 2. [------]

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not elsewhere found in Acts, but it occurs Matth. xvi. 20, Mark v. 43, vii. 36 twice, viii. 15, ix. 9, and Heb. xii. 20. Verse 25: [------], Acts 8, Luke 11, Paul 17 times, elsewhere frequently. [------], i. 14, ii. 1, 46, iv. 24, v. 12, xii. 57, viii. 6, xii. 20, xviii. 12, xix.

29; so that this word, not in very common use even in general Greek literature, occurs 10 times elsewhere in the Acts, but, except in Rom.

xv. 6, is not employed by any other New Testament writer. [------], i. 2, 24, vi. 5, xiii. 17, xv. 7, 22, Luke vi. 13, x. 42, xiv. 7, and elsewhere 11 times, [------], Acts 11, Luke 10 times, elsewhere common, [------] is not elsewhere used in Acts, but is found in Luke iii.

22, ix. 35, xx. 13, Paul 13 times, and is common elsewhere. Verse 26: [------], Acts 13, Luke 17 times, and common elsewhere, [------], xxi.

13, v. 41, ix. 16, Rom. i. 5, 3 John 7. Verse 27: [------], Acts 25, Luke 26 times, elsewhere very frequently. [------], xv. 32. [------], Acts 14, Luke 11, rest 21 times, [------], Luke vi. 23, 26; [------], Acts i. 15, ii. 1, 44, iii. 1, iv. 26, xiv. 1; Luke vi. 33, xvii. 35.

Verse 28: [------], Acts 12, Luke 4, Paul 6, elsewhere 13 times; the same expression, [------]... is also found in Luke iii. 13. [------], Acts 13, Luke 6, elsewhere 21 times. [------] is not elsewhere met with in Acts, but occurs Matt. xx. 12, 2 Cor. iv. 17, Gal. vi. 2, 1 Thes.

il 6, Apoc. ii. 24. [------], viii. 1, xx. 23, xxvii. 22, Luke 15, elsewhere 13 times. [------] is not elsewhere found in the New Testament. Verse 29: [------], xv. 20, Luke vi. 24, vii. 6, xv. 20, xxiv. 13, elsewhere 12 times. [------], xxi. 25, 1 Cor. viii. 1, 4, 7, 10, x. 19, 28, Apoc. ii. 14, 20. [------] occurs only in Luke ii. 51.

[------], Acts 12, Luke 6, Paul 15, elsewhere 5 times only, [------], this

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usual Greek formula for the ending of a letter, [------], is nowhere else used in the New Testament, except at the close of the letter of Lysias, xxiii. 30.

Turning now from the letter to the spirit of this decree, we must endeavour to form some idea of its purport and bearing. The first point which should be made clear is, that the question raised before the Council solely affected the Gentile converts, and that the conditions contained in the decree were imposed upon that branch of the Church alone. No change whatever in the position of Jewish Christians was contemplated; they were left as before, subject to the Mosaic law.(1) This is very apparent in the reference which is made long after to the decree, Ch. xxi. 20 ff., 25, when the desire is expressed to Paul by James, who proposed the decree, and the elders of Jerusalem, that he should prove to the many thousands of believing Jews all zealous of the law, that he did not teach the Jews who were among the Gentiles apostasy from Moses, saying that they ought not to circ.u.mcise their children, neither to walk after the customs. Paul, who is likewise represented, in the Acts, as circ.u.mcising with his own hand, after the decision of the Council had been adopted, Timothy the son of a Greek, whose mother was a Jewess, consents to give the Jews of Jerusalem the required proof. We have already shown at the commencement of this section, that

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nothing was further from the minds of the Jewish Christians than the supposition that the obligation to observe the Mosaic law was weakened by the adoption of Christianity; and the representation in the Acts is certainly so far correct, that it does not pretend that Jewish Christians either desired or sanctioned any relaxation of Mosaic observances on the part of believing Jews. This cannot be too distinctly remembered in considering the history of primitive Christianity. The initiatory rite was essential to full partic.i.p.ation in the Covenant.

It was left for Paul to preach the abrogation of the law and the abandonment of circ.u.mcision. If the speech of Peter seems to suggest the abrogation of the law even for Jews, it is only in a way which shows that the author had no clear historical fact to relate, and merely desired to ascribe, vaguely and indefinitely, Pauline sentiments to the Apostle of the circ.u.mcision. No remark whatever is made upon these strangely liberal expressions of Peter, and neither the proposition of James nor the speech in which he makes it takes the slightest notice of them. The conduct of Peter at Antioch and the influence exercised by James through his emissaries restore us to historical ground. Whether the author intended to represent that the object of the conditions of the decree was to admit the Gentile Christians to full communion with the Jewish, or merely to the subordinate position of Proselytes of the Gate, is uncertain, but it is not necessary to discuss the point. There is not the slightest external evidence that such a decree ever existed, and the more closely the details are examined the more evident does it become that it has no historical consistency. How, and upon what principle, were these singular conditions selected? Their heterogeneous character is at once apparent, but not so the

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reason for a combination which is neither limited to Jewish customs nor sufficiently representative of moral duties. It has been argued, on the one hand, that the prohibitions of the apostolic decree are simply those, reduced to a necessary minimum, which were enforced in the case of heathen converts to Judaism who did not join themselves fully to the people of the Covenant by submitting to circ.u.mcision, but were admitted to imperfect communion as Proselytes of the Gate.(1) The conditions named, however, do not fully represent the rules framed for such cases, and many critics consider that the conditions imposed, although they may have been influenced by the Noachiaii prescriptions, were rather moral duties which it was, from special circ.u.mstances, thought expedient to specify.(2) "We shall presently refer to some of these conditions, but bearing in mind the views which were dominant amongst primitive Christians, and more especially, as is obvious, amongst the Christians of Jerusalem where this decree is supposed to have been unanimously adopted, bearing in mind the teaching which is said to have led to the Council, the episode at Antioch, and the systematic judaistic opposition which r.e.t.a.r.ded the work of Paul and subsequently affected his reputation, it may be instructive

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to point out not only the vagueness which exists as to the position which it was intended that the Gentiles should acquire, as the effect of this decree, but also its singular and total inefficiency. An apologetic writer, having of course in his mind the fact that there is no trace of the operation of the decree, speaks of its conditions as follows: "The miscellaneous character of these prohibitions showed that, taken as a whole, they had no binding force independently of the circ.u.mstances which dictated them. They were a temporary expedient framed to meet a temporary emergency. Their object was the avoidance of offence in mixed communities of Jew and Gentile converts. Beyond this recognised aim and general understanding implied therein, the limits of their application were not defined."1 In fact the immunity granted to the Gentiles was thus practically almost unconditional.

It is obvious, however, that every consideration which represents the decree as more completely emanc.i.p.ating Gentile Christians from Mosaic obligations, and admitting them into free communion with believers amongst the Jews, places it in more emphatic contradiction to historical facts and the statements of the Apostle Paul. The unanimous adoption of such a measure in Jerusalem, on the one hand, and, on the other, the episode at Antioch, the fear of Peter, the silence of Paul, and the att.i.tude of James become perfectly inconceivable. If on the contrary the conditions were seriously imposed and really meant anything, a number of difficulties spring up of which we shall presently speak. That the prohibitions, in the opinion of the author of the Acts, const.i.tuted a positive and binding obligation can scarcely be doubted by anyone who considers the terms in which they are laid down. If

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they are represented as a concession they are nevertheless recognised as a "burden," and they are distinctly stated to be the obligations which "it seemed good to the Holy Spirit" as well as to the Council to impose.

The qualification, that the restrictive clauses had no binding force "independently of the circ.u.mstances which dictated them," in so far as it has any meaning beyond the unnecessary declaration that the decree was only applicable to the cla.s.s for whom it was framed, seems to be inadmissible. The circ.u.mstance which dictated the decree was the counter-teaching of Jewish Christians, that it was necessary that the Gentile converts should be circ.u.mcised and keep the law of Moses. The restrictive clauses are simply represented as those which it was deemed right to impose; and, as they are stated without qualification, it is holding the decision of the "Holy Spirit" and of the Church somewhat cheap to treat them as mere local and temporary expedients. This is evidently not the view of the author of the Acts. Would it have been the view of anyone else if it were not that, so far as any external trace of the decree is concerned, it is an absolute myth? The prevalence of practices to which the four prohibitions point is quite sufficiently attested to show that, little as there is any ground for considering that such a decree was framed in such a manner, the restrictive clauses are put forth as necessary and permanently binding. The very doubt which exists as to whether the prohibitions were not intended to represent the conditions imposed on Proselytes of the Gate shows their close a.n.a.logy to them, and it cannot be reasonably a.s.serted that the early Christians regarded those conditions either as obsolete or indifferent. The decree is clearly intended to set forth the terms upon which Gentile Christians were

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to be admitted into communion, and undoubtedly is to be taken as applicable not merely to a few districts, but to the Gentiles in general.

The account which Paul gives of his visit not only ignores any such decree, but excludes it. In the first place, taking into account the Apostle's character and the spirit of his Epistle, it is impossible to suppose that Paul had any intention of submitting, as to higher authority, the Gospel which he preached, for the judgment of the elder Apostles and of the Church of Jerusalem.(1) Nothing short of this is involved in the account in the Acts, and in the form of the decree which promulgates, in an authoritative manner, restrictive clauses which "seemed good to the Holy Spirit" and to the Council. The temper of the man is well shown in Paul's indignant letter to the Galatians. He receives his Gospel, not from men, but by direct revelation from Jesus Christ and, so far is he from submission of the kind implied, that he says: "But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any Gospel other than that which we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so say I now again: If any man preach any Gospel to you other than that ye received, let him be accursed."(2) That the Apostle here refers to his own peculiar teaching, and does so in contradistinction to the Gospel preached by the Judaizers, is evident from the preceding words: "I marvel that ye are so soon removing from him that called you in the grace of Christ unto a different Gospel; which is not another, only there are

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some that trouble you, and desire to pervert the Gospel of Christ."(1) Pa.s.sing from this, however, to the restrictive clauses in general, how is it possible that Paul could state, as the result of his visit, that the "pillar" Apostles "communicated nothing" after hearing his Gospel, if the four conditions of this decree had thus been authoritatively "communicated"? On the contrary, Paul distinctly adds that, in acknowledging his mission, but one condition had been attached: "Only that we should remember the poor; which very thing I also was forward to do."(2) As one condition is here mentioned, why not the others, had any been actually imposed? It is argued that the remembrance of the poor of Jerusalem which is thus inculcated was a recommendation personally made to Paul and Barnabas, but it is clear that the Apostle's words refer to the result of his communication of his Gospel, and to the understanding under which his mission to the Gentiles was tolerated.

We have already pointed out how extraordinary it is that such a decision of the Council should not have been referred to in describing his visit, and the more we go into details the more striking and inexplicable, except in one way, is such silence. In relating the struggle regarding the circ.u.mcision of t.i.tus, for instance, and stating that he did not yield, no, not for an hour, to the demands made on the subject, is it conceivable that, if the exemption of all Gentile Christians from the initiatory rite had

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been unanimously conceded, Paul would not have added to his statement about t.i.tus, 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 circ.u.mcision 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 a.s.sert 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 circ.u.mcision on the Gentile converts, and, as the best means of weakening the authority of St.

Paul, a.s.serted for the Apostles of the Circ.u.mcision the exclusive right of dictating to the Church." Lightfoot, Ep.

to the Gal. p. 353.

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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 circ.u.mcision 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 circ.u.mcision 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

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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 doc.u.ment 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

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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 partic.i.p.ation, 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

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good to the Holy Spirit to enjoin, the only reasonable conclusion is that Paul himself was totally ignorant of the existence of any decree containing such a prohibition. There is much difference of opinion as to the nature of the [------] referred to in the decree, and we need not discuss it; but in all the Apostle's homilies upon the subject there is the same total absence of all allusion to the decision of the Council.

Nowhere can any practical result from the operation of the decree be pointed out, nor any trace even of its existence.1 The a.s.sertions and conjectures, by which those who maintain the authenticity of the narrative in the Acts seek to explain the extraordinary absence of all external evidence of the decree, labour under the disadvantage of all attempts to account for the total failure of effects from a supposed cause, the existence of which is in reality only a.s.sumed. It is customary to reply to the objection that there is no mention of the decree in the Epistles of Paul or in any other contemporary writing, that this is a mere argument _a silentio_. Is it not, however, difficult to imagine any other argument, from contemporary sources, regarding what is affirmed to have had no existence, than that from silence 1 Do apologists absolutely demand that, with prophetic antic.i.p.ation of future controversies, the Apostle Paul should obligingly have left on record that there actually was no Council such as a writer would subsequently describe, and that the decree which he

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would put forward as the result of that Council must not he accepted as genuine? It is natural to expect that, when writing of the very visit in question, and dealing with subjects and discussions in which, whether in the shape of historical allusion, appeal to authority, taunt for inconsistency, or a.s.sertion of his own influence, some allusion to the decree would have been highly appropriate, if not necessary, the Apostle Paul should at least have given some hint of its existence. His not doing so const.i.tutes strong presumptive evidence against the authenticity of the decree, and all the more so as no more positive evidence than silence could possibly be forthcoming of the non-existence of that which never existed. The supposed decree of the Council of Jerusalem cannot on any ground be accepted as a historical fact.(1)

We may now return to such further consideration of the statements of the Epistle as may seem necessary for the object of our inquiry. No mention is made by the Apostle of any official mission on the subject of circ.u.mcision, and the discussion of that question arises in a merely incidental manner from the presence of t.i.tus, an uncirc.u.mcised Gentile Christian. There has been much discussion as to whether t.i.tus actually was circ.u.mcised or not, and there

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can be little doubt that the omission of the negative [------] from Gal. ii. 5, has been in some cases influenced by the desire to bring the Apostle's conduct upon this occasion into harmony with the account, in Acts xvi. 3, of his circ.u.mcising Timothy.(1) We shall not require to enter into any controversy on the point, for the great majority of critics are agreed that the Apostle intended to say that t.i.tus was not circ.u.mcised, although the contrary is affirmed by a few writers.(2) It is obvious from the whole of the Apostle's narrative that great pressure was exerted to induce t.i.tus to submit, and that Paul, if he did not yield even for an hour the required subjection, had a long and severe struggle to maintain his position. Even when relating the circ.u.mstances in his letter to the Galatians, the recollection of his contest profoundly stirs the Apostle's indignation; his utterance becomes vehement, but cannot keep pace with his impetuous thoughts, and the result is a narrative in broken and abrupt sentences whose very incompleteness is eloquent, and betrays the irritation which has not even yet entirely subsided. How does this accord with the whole tone of the account in the Acts? It is customary with apologists to insert so much between the lines of that narrative, partly from imagination and partly from the statements of the Epistle, that they almost convince themselves and others that such additions are actually suggested by the author of the Acts himself. If we take the account of the Acts, however, without such trans.m.u.tations, it is certain that not only is there not the slightest indication of any struggle regarding the

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circ.u.mcision of t.i.tus, "in which St. Paul maintained at one time almost single-handed the cause of Gentile freedom,"(1) but no suggestion that there had ever been any hesitation on the part of the leading Apostles and the ma.s.s of the Church regarding the point at issue. The impression given by the author of the Acts is undeniably one of unbroken and undisturbed harmony: of a council in which the elder Apostles were of one mind with Paul, and warmly agreed with him that the Gentiles should be delivered from the yoke of the Mosaic law and from the necessity of undergoing the initiatory rite. What is there in such an account to justify in any degree the irritation displayed by Paul at the mere recollection of this visit, or to merit the ironical terms with which he speaks of the "pillar" Apostles?

We may, however, now consider the part which the Apostles must have taken in the dispute regarding the circ.u.mcision of t.i.tus. Is it possible to suppose that, if the circ.u.mcision of Paul's follower had only been demanded by certain of the sect of the Pharisees who believed, unsupported by the rest, there could ever have been any considerable struggle on the point? Is it possible, further, to suppose that, if Paul had received the cordial support of James and the leading Apostles in his refusal to concede the circ.u.mcision of t.i.tus, such a contest could have been more than momentary and trifling? Is it possible that the Apostle Paul could have spoken of "certain of the sect of the Pharisees who believed" in such terms as: "to whom we yielded by the submission [------] no not for an hour?"(2) or that he could have used this expression if those who pressed the demand upon him had not been in a position

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