Moreover, the apologetic explanation altogether fails upon other grounds. Without appealing to the decree as an authority, we must feel sure that the Apostle would at least have made use of it as a logical refutation of his adversaries. The man who did not hesitate to attack Peter openly for inconsistency, and charge him with hypocrisy, would not have hesitated to cite the decree as evidence, and still less to fling it in the faces of those Judaizers who, so short a time after that decree is supposed to have been promulgated, preached the necessity of circumcision and Mosaic observances in direct opposition to its terms, whilst claiming to represent the views of the very Apostles and Church which had framed it. Paul, who never denies the validity of their claim, would most certainly have taunted them with gross inconsistency and retorted that the Church of Jerusalem, the Apostles, and the Judaizers who now troubled him and preached circumcision and the Mosaic law had, four or five years previously, declared as the deliberate decision of the Holy Spirit and the Council, that they were no longer binding on the Gentile converts. By such a reference "the discussion would have been foreclosed." None of the reasons which are suggested to explain the undeniable fact that there is no mention of the decree can really bear examination, and that fact remains supported by a great many powerful considerations, leading to the very simple explanation which reconciles all difficulties, that the narrative of the Acts is not authentic. We arrive at the very same results when we examine the Apostle's references to the practices which the conditions of the decree were intended to control. Instead of recognising the authority of the decree, or enforcing its {271}