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 participation in the Covenant. It was left for Paul to preach the abrogation of the law and the abandonment of circumcision. 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 circumcision. 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 {264}