Observe the difference. On the one side holy concord; on the other, extreme susceptibility and half-restrained anger. On one side a harmonious council; and on the other, nothing resembling it. On the one side a formal decree emanating from a recognised authority; on the other, antagonistic opinions reciprocally conceding nothing excepting for form's sake. It is needless to say which version merits our preference. The account given in the Acts is scarcely truthful, because the dispute in which the Council was engaged is not alluded to after the Council was reunited. The two orators here make use of expressions contradictory to what they had elsewhere said. The decree which the Council is reported to have made, is assuredly a fiction. If this decree, emanating from the pen of James, had really been promulgated, why should the good and timid Peter have been afraid of the messengers sent by James? Why should he hide himself? He, as well as the Christians of Antioch, was acting in entire conformity with this decree, the terms of which had been dictated by James himself. The discussion relating to circumcision took place about 51; yet several years after, about the year 56, the quarrel which this decree should have terminated, was more lively than ever. The Church of Galatia was troubled by new emissaries sent by the Jewish party of Jerusalem.[I.55] Paul answers to this new attack of his enemies by his terrible Epistle. If the decree reported in the fifteenth chapter of the _Acts_ had existed, Paul, by referring to it, would have had a much simpler method of bringing the debate to a close. Now, everything that he says, intimates the non-existence of this decree; and in 57, Paul writing to the Corinthians, not only ignores it, but even violates its directions. The decree commands abstinence from flesh offered to idols; but Paul, on the contrary, thinks it no wrong to eat of this flesh as long as no one is scandalized by the act, though he advises abstinence should it give offence to any one.[I.56] In 58, at last, after the last journey of Paul to Jerusalem, James was more obstinate than ever.[I.57] One of the characteristic traits of the book of _Acts_, clearly proving that the author is less anxious to present historic truth or even to satisfy logical reasoning than to edify pious readers, is this fact, that the question of the admission of the uncircumcised is always on the point of being resolved without ever attaining that consummation. The baptism of the eunuch of Candia, the baptism of the centurion Cornelius, both miraculously ordered; the foundation of the Church at Antioch (XI. 19; and following verses); the pretended Council at Jerusalem--all leave the question yet in suspense. In truth, it always remained in that state. The two fractions of budding Christianity never came together; and that one which maintained the practices of Judaism proved unfruitful, and soon vanished in obscurity. So far from finding