According to the Acts, a most serious question is raised at Antioch. Certain men from Judaea came thither teaching: "Except ye have been circumcised after the manner of Moses ye cannot be saved." After much dissension and disputation the Church of Antioch appoint that Paul and Barnabas, "and certain others of them" shall go up to Jerusalem unto the Apostles and elders about this question. The motive of the journey is here most distinctly and definitely described. Paul is solemnly deputed by the church to lay before the mother Church of Jerusalem a difficult question, upon the answer to which turns the whole future of Christianity. Paul's account, however, gives a very different complexion to the visit:--"Then, after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus also with me. But I went up according to revelation [------] and communicated to them the Gospel which I preach among the Gentiles," &c. Paley might well say:--"This is not very reconcilable."(1) It is argued,(2) that the two {228} statements may supplement each other; that the revelation may have been made to the Church of Antioch and have led to the mission; or that, being made to Paul, it may have decided him to undertake it. If however, we admit that the essence of truth consists not in the mere letter but in the spirit of what is stated, it seems impossible to reconcile these accounts. It might be granted that a historian, giving a report of events which had occurred, might omit some secret motive actuating the conduct even of one of the principal persons with whom he has to do; but that the Apostle, under the actual circumstances, and while protesting: "Now the things which I am writing unto you, behold, before God, I lie not!" should altogether suppress the important official character of his journey to Jerusalem, and give it the distinct colour of a visit voluntarily and independently made [------], is inconceivable. As we proceed, it will become apparent that the divergence between the two accounts is systematic and fundamental; but we may here so far anticipate as to point out that the Apostle explicitly excludes an official visit not only by stating an "inward motive," and omitting all mention of a public object, but by the expression:--"and communicated to them the Gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to those who," &c. To quote Paley's words: "If by 'that Gospel,' he meant the immunity of the Gentile Christians from the Jewish law (and I know not what else it can mean), it is not easy to conceive how he should communicate that privately, which was the subject of his public message;"(1) and {229}