at table. This leads to a striking train of reflection upon the whole episode. It is a curious thing that the supernatural vision, which is designed to inform Peter and the Apostles that the Gentiles might be received into the Church, should take the form of a mere intimation that the distinction of clean and unclean animals was no longer binding, and that he might indifferently kill and eat One might have thought that, on the supposition that Heaven desired to give Peter and the Church a command to admit the Gentiles unconditionally to the benefits of the Gospel, this would be simply and clearly stated. This was not done at all, and the intimation by which Peter supposes himself justified in considering it lawful to go to Cornelius is, in the first place, merely on the subject of animals defined as clean and unclean. Doubtless the prohibition as to certain meats might tend to continue the separation between Jew and Gentile, and the disregard of such distinctions of course promoted general intercourse with strangers; but this by no means explains why the abrogation of this distinction is made the intimation to receive Gentiles into the Church. When Peter returns to Jerusalem we are told that "they of the circumcision"--that is to say, the whole Church there, since at that period all were "of the circumcision," and this phrase further indicates that the writer has no historical stand-point--contended with him. The subject of the contention we might suppose was the baptism of Gentiles; but not so: the charge brought against him was:--"Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them."(1) The subject of Paul's dispute with Peter at Antioch simply was that, "before that certain came from James, he did eat with {195} the Gentiles; but when they came he withdrew, fearing them of the circumcision."(1) That the whole of these passages should turn merely on the fact of eating with men who were uncircumcised, is very suggestive, and as the Church at Jerusalem make no allusion to the baptism of uncircumcised Gentiles, it would lead to the inference that nothing was known of such an event, and that the circumstance was simply added to some other narrative; and this is rendered all the more probable by the fact that, in the affair at Antioch as well as throughout the Epistle to the Galatians, Peter is very far from acting as one who had been the first to receive uncircumcised Gentiles freely into the Church.