[28] Acts 20:35. It is in the parting scene--when about to break from his dissuading disciples, and enter upon his invasion project--that Paul is represented as saying to them: "Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive." Whence this self-appointed and posthumous Apostle of Jesus got these words of Jesus--if such they were--must be left to conjecture. In the works of the four received biographers of Jesus, with _Cruden_ and his _Concordance_ for guides, all search for them has been fruitless. CHAPTER VI. _Paul disbelieved continued.--His third Jerusalem Visit.--Paul and Barnabas delegated by Antioch Saints, to confer on the Necessity of Jewish Rites to Heathen Converts to the Religion of Jesus._ SECTION 1. OCCASION OF THIS VISIT. We come now to the transaction, on the occasion of which, the grand object of Paul's ambition received, in part, its accomplishment: namely, that, by which,--though without any such popular election as, in the instance of Matthias, had been necessary to constitute a man an associate to the Apostles,--he was, in some sort, taken by them into fellowship, and admitted, with their consent, into a participation of their labours. This occasion was--the dispute, which, in the Syrian Antioch, took place, according to the author of the Acts, on the question--whether, under the religion of Jesus, circumcision was necessary to salvation: a question, in which,--whether explicitly or no,--was implicitly, it should seem, and perhaps inextricably, understood to be involved, the so much wider question--whether, under that same new religion, the old ceremonial law should, in any part of it, be regarded as necessary. On this same occasion, two important subjects present themselves to view at the same time: the one, a question of _doctrine_ relative to circumcision, as above; the other, a question about _jurisdiction_, as between Paul on the one part, and Peter, with or without the rest of the Apostles. As to what concerns the debate about circumcision, we have no other evidence than the statement of the author of the Acts. As to what concerns the jurisdiction question, we have the evidence of Paul himself, as contained in his letter to the Galatian converts: and an original letter, howsoever dubious the correctness of the author in respect of matters of fact, is more trustworthy than a multitude of anonymous narratives.[29] In respect of the progress made by the religion of Jesus,--Antioch, it has already been observed--the Syrian Antioch--had become a second Jerusalem; and, so far as concerned the Gentiles at large, its maritime situation gave to it a convenience, that was not shared with it by that inland city.