been unanimously conceded, Paul would not have added to his statement about Titus, that not only he himself had not been compelled to give way in this instance, but that his representations had even convinced those who had been Apostles before him, and secured the unanimous adoption of his own views on the point? The whole of this Epistle is a vehement and intensely earnest denunciation of those Judaizers who were pressing the necessity of the initiatory rite upon the Galatian converts.(1) Is it possible that the Apostle could have left totally unmentioned the fact that the Apostles and the very Church of Jerusalem had actually declared circumcision to be unnecessary? It would not have accorded with Paul's character, it is said, to have appealed to the authority of the elder Apostles or of the Church in a matter in which his own apostolic authority and teaching were in question. In that case, bow can it be supposed that he ever went at all up to Jerusalem to the Apostles and elders about this question? If he was not too proud to lay aside his apostolic dignity and, representing the Christians of Antioch, to submit the case to the Council at Jerusalem, and subsequently to deliver its decree to various communities, is it consistent with reason or common sense to assert that he was too proud to recall the decision of that Council to the Christians of Galatia? It must, we think, be obvious that, if such an explanation of Paul's total silence as to the decree be at all valid, it is absolutely fatal to the account of Paul's visit in the Acts. This reasoning is not confined to the Epistle to the Galatians but, as Paley 1 "Turning from Antioch to Galatia, we meet with Judaic teachers who urged circumcision on the Gentile converts, and, as the best means of weakening the authority of St. Paul, asserted for the Apostles of the Circumcision the exclusive right of dictating to the Church." Lightfoot, Ep. to the Gal. p. 353. {270} points out, applies to the other Epistles of Paul, in all of which the same silence is preserved.