The whole apologetic argument in fact sinks into one of mere expediency: Timothy, the son of a Jewess and of a Greek, and thus having a certain affinity both to Jews and Gentiles, would become a much more efficient assistant to Paul if he were circumcised and thus had access to the Jewish synagogues; therefore Paul, who himself became as a Jew that he might win the Jews, demanded the same sacrifice from his follower. But can this argument bear any scrutiny by the light of Paul's own writings? It cannot. Paul openly claims to be the Apostle of the Gentiles, and just before the period at which he is supposed to circumcise Timothy, he parts from the elder Apostles with the understanding that he is to go to the Gentiles who are freed from circumcision. It is a singular commencement of his mission, to circumcise the son of a Greek father after he had become a Christian. Such supposed considerations about access to synagogues and conciliation of the Jews would seem more suitable to a missionary to the circumcision, than to the Apostle of the Gentiles. It must be apparent to all that in going more specially to the Gentiles, as he avowedly was, the alleged expediency of circumcising Timothy falls to the ground, and on the contrary that such an act would have compromised his whole Gospel. Paul's characteristic teaching was the inutility of circumcision, and upon this point he sustained the incessant attacks of the emissaries of James and the Judaistic party without yielding or compromise. What could have been more ill-advised under {301} such circumstances than the circumcision with his own hands of a convert who, if the son of a Jewess, was likewise the son of a Greek, and had remained uncircumcised until he had actually embraced that faith which, Paul taught, superseded circumcision? The Apostle who declared: "Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing,"(1) could not have circumcised the Christian Timothy; and if any utterance of Paul more distinctly and explicitly applicable to the present case be required, it is aptly supplied by the following: "Was any man called being circumcised? let him not become uncircumcised. Hath any man been called in uncircumcision? let him not be circumcised.... Let each abide in the same calling wherein he was called."(2)