The Church of Jerusalem was still exclusively composed of Jews and of proselytes. The Holy Ghost being shed upon the uncircumcised before baptism, appeared an extraordinary fact. It is probable that there existed thenceforth a party opposed in principle to the admission of Gentiles, and that every one did not accept the explanations of Peter. The author of the _Acts_[11.30] would have it that the approbation was unanimous. But in a few years we shall see the question revived with much greater intensity.[11.31] The fact of the good centurion was, perhaps, like that of the Ethiopian eunuch, accepted as an exceptional one, justified by a revelation and an express order from God. The matter was far from being settled. This was the first controversy in the bosom of the Church; the paradise of interior peace had lasted six or seven years. About the year 40, the great question on which hung all the future of Christianity appears thus to have been propounded. Peter and Philip took a very just view of the true solution, and baptized pagans. It is difficult, no doubt, in the two accounts given us by the author of the _Acts_ on this subject, and which are partly sketched one from the other, not to recognise a system. The author of the _Acts_ belongs to a party of conciliation, favorable to the introduction of pagans into the Church, and who is not willing to confess the violence of the divisions to which the affair gave rise. One feels strongly that in writing the episodes of the eunuch, of the centurion, and even of the conversion of the Samaritans, this author means not only to narrate facts, but seeks especially precedents for an opinion. On the other hand, we cannot admit that he invents the facts which he narrates. The conversions of the eunuch of Candace, and of the centurion Cornelius, are probably real facts, presented and transformed according to the needs of the thesis in view of which the book of the Acts was composed. Paul, who was destined, some ten or eleven years later, to give to this discussion so decisive a bearing, had not yet meddled with it. He was in the Hauran, or at Damascus, preaching, refuting the Jews, placing at the service of the new faith as much ardor as he had shown in fighting against it. The fanaticism, of which he had been the instrument, was not long in pursuing him in his turn. The Jews resolved to destroy him. They obtained from the ethnarch, who governed Damascus in the name of Hârath, an order to arrest him. Paul hid himself. It was known that he had to leave the city; the ethnarch, who wanted to please the Jews, placed detachments at the gates to seize his person; but the brethren enabled him to escape by night, letting him down in a basket from the window of a house which overhung the ramparts.[11.32]