On this occasion, by the author of the Acts, once more is mentioned the conciliatory decree of the Apostles and Elders. Still, not a syllable about it is to be found in any Epistle of Saint Paul, or in any other of the Apostolical Epistles that have come down to us. Humanly speaking,--in what motives, in what circumstances, in what considerations, shall we say, that the causes, final and efficient, of this temperament--this _mezzo termino_--this middle course--are to be found? The answer that presents itself is as follows: Two stumbling-blocks were to be steered clear of:--the scruples of the Jewish converts, and the refractoriness of the Gentiles. So far as regarded abstinence from idolatrous feasts, and from meat with the whole blood in it, killed and dressed in a manner other than that in practice among the Jews,--conformity, it was judged, need not be dispensed of, at the hands of the Gentiles: and, so long as they would be content with meat killed and dressed after the Jewish mode,--the Jewish teachers might, without giving offence to their Jewish converts, have the convenience of partaking of the tables of the Gentile converts. As to the rest--the endless train of habitual observances, by which so large a portion of a man's life was occupied and tormented, neither these permanent plagues, nor the initiatory plague of circumcision, though the affair of a minute, and performed once for all, were found endurable: neither upon himself nor upon his children would a man submit to have it practiced. After all, if the author of the Acts is to be believed,--it was by the Jews of Asia, and not by those of Jerusalem, that, at Jerusalem, the tumult was raised, by which this purification of Paul's was rendered incomplete, and his stay at Jerusalem cut short: he being removed for trial to Rome; at which place the history leaves him and concludes. Of the behaviour observed by the Jerusalem Christians, on that occasion--Apostles, Elders, Deacons and ordinary brethren all together--nothing is said. Yet, of these there were many thousands on the spot, Acts 21:20: all of them of course informed of the place--the holy place,--in which, at the recommendation of the Elders, Paul had stationed himself. By the Jews of Asia were "all the people on this occasion stirred up," Acts 21:27: yet, among so many thousands, no protection, nor any endeavour to afford him protection, for aught that appears, did he experience. Yet Asia it was, that had been, to the exclusion of Judaea, the theatre of his labours: from Asia it was, that the train of attendants he brought with him, were come--were come with him to these brethren--"the brethren,"--as if it had been said, _all_ the brethren,--by whom, according to the author of the Acts, they were "received so gladly."