Volume III Part 16 (1/2)

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.