The words of Paul in describing the final understanding are very remarkable and require further consideration. The decision that they should go to the circumcision and Paul to the Gentiles is based upon the recognition of a different Gospel entrusted to him, the Gospel of the uncircumcision, as the Gospel of the circumcision is entrusted to Peter. It will be remembered that Paul states that, on going up to Jerusalem upon this occasion, he communicated to them the Gospel which he preached among the Gentiles, and it is probable that he made the journey more especially for this purpose. It appears from the account that this Gospel was not only new to them, but was {286} distinctly diflferent from that of the elder Apostles. If Paul preached the same Gospel as the rest, what necessity could there have been for communicating it at all? What doubt that by any means he might be running, or had run, in vain? He knew perfectly well that he preached a diflferent Gospel from the Apostles of the circumcision, and his anxiety probably was to secure an amicable recognition of the Gentile converts whom he had taught to consider circumcision unnecessary and the obligation of the law removed. Of course there was much that was fundamentally the same in the two Gospels, starting as they both did with the recognition of Jesus as the Messiah; but their points of divergence were very marked and striking, and more especially in directions where the prejudices of the Apostles of the circumcision were the strongest Avoiding all debatable ground, it is clear that the Gospel of the uncircumcision, which proclaimed the abrogation of the law and the inutility of the initiatory rite, must have been profoundly repugnant to Jews, who still preached the obligation of circumcision and the observance of the law. "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law"(1) said the Gospel of the uncircumcision. "Behold, I, Paul, say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing.... For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but faith working through love."(2) "For neither circumcision is anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature."(3) The teaching which was specially designated the Gospel of the circumcision, in contradistinction to this Gospel of the uncircumcision, held very diflferent language. There is no gainsaying the {287} main fact--and that fact, certified by Paul himself and substantiated by a host of collateral circumstances, is more conclusive than all conciliatory apologetic reasoning--that, at the date of this visit to Jerusalem (c. a.d. 50-52), the Three, after hearing all that Paul had to say, allowed him to go alone to the Gentiles, but themselves would have no part in the mission, and turned as before to the circumcision.