This reference to the elder Apostles gives point to much of the epistle which is ambiguous, and more especially when the judaistic nature of the opposition is so clearly indicated a few verses further on: "Are they Hebrews? so am I. Are they Israelites? so am I. Are they Abraham's seed? so am I. Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool), I am more; in labours more abundantly, in prisons exceedingly, in deaths often," &c, &c.(2) It is argued that the Twelve had not sufficient authority over their followers to prevent such interference with Paul, and that the relation of the Apostle to the Twelve was: "separation, not opposition, antagonism of the followers rather than of the leaders, personal antipathy of the Judaizers to St. Paul, rather than of St. Paul to the Twelve."(3) It is not difficult to believe that the antipathy of Paul to the Judaizers was less than that felt by them towards him. The superiority of the man must have rendered him somewhat callous to such dislike.(4) But the mitigated form of difference between Paul and the Twelve here assumed, although still very different from the representations of the Acts, {312} cannot be established, but on the contrary must be much widened before it can justly be taken as that existing between Paul and the elder Apostles. We do not go so far as to say that there was open enmity between them, or active antagonism of any distinct character on the part of the Twelve to the Apostle of the Gentiles, but there is every reason to believe that they not only disliked his teaching, but endeavoured to counteract it by their own ministry of the circumcision. They not only did not restrain the opposition of their followers, but they abetted them in their counter-assertion of judaistic views. Had the Twelve felt any cordial friendship for Paul, and exhibited any active desire for the success of his ministry of the uncircumcision, it is quite impossible that his work could have been so continuously and vexatiously impeded by the persecution of the Jewish Christian party. The Apostles may not have possessed sufficient influence or authority entirely to control the action of adherents, but it would be folly to suppose that, if unanimity of views had prevailed between them and Paul, and a firm and consistent support had been extended to him, such systematic resistance as he everywhere encountered from the party professing to be led by the "pillar" Apostles could have been seriously maintained, or that he could have been left alone and unaided to struggle against it. If the relations between Paul and the Twelve had been such as are intimated in the Acts of the Apostles, his epistles must have presented undoubted evidence of the fact Both negatively and positively they testify the absence of all support, and the existence of antagonistic influence on the part of the elder Apostles, and external evidence fully confirms the impression which the epistles produce.(1) {313}