which did not directly involve principles, is a very different thing from conduct like that at Antioch where, under one influence, a line of action was temporarily adopted which ratified views upon which the opinion of the Church was divided, and then abandoned merely from fear of the disapproval of those of the Circumcision. The author of the Acts passes over this altercation in complete silence. No one has ever called in question the authenticity of the account which Paul gives of it. If Peter had the courage to make such a speech at the Council in the very capital of Judaic Christianity, and in the presence of James and the whole Church, how could he possibly, from fear of a few men from Jerusalem, have shown such pusillanimity in Antioch, where Paul and the mass of Christians supported him? If the unanimous decision of the Council had really been a fact, how easily he might have silenced any objections by an appeal to that which had "seemed good to the Holy Spirit" and to the Church! But there is not the slightest knowledge of the Council and its decree betrayed either by those who came from James, or by Peter, or Paul. The episode at Antioch is inconsistent with the conduct and words ascribed to Peter in the Acts, and contradicts the narrative in the fifteenth chapter which we are examining.(1) The author of the Acts states that after Peter had spoken, "all the multitude kept silence and were hearing {247} Barnabas and Paul declaring what signs and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them."(1) We shall not at present pause to consider this statement, nor the _role_ which Paul is made to play in the whole transaction, beyond pointing out that, on an occasion when such a subject as the circumcision of the Gentiles and their subjection to the Mosaic law was being discussed, nothing could be more opposed to nature than to suppose that a man like the author of the Epistle to the Galatians could have assumed so passive, and subordinate an attitude.(2) After Barnabas and Paul had spoken, James is represented as saying: "Men (and) brethren, hear me. Simeon declared how God at first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name. And with this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written: 'After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David which has fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and will set it up: that the residue of men may seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name has been called, saith the Lord who doeth these things, known from the beginning.' Wherefore, I judge that we trouble not those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God; but that we write unto them that they abstain from the pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood. For Moses from generations of old hath in every city those who preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath."(3) There are many reasons for which this {248}