the Apostle of the Circumcision in preventing that schism with which the diverse parties and opposing ideas of Jew and Gentile threatened the infant Church, in smoothing over and reconciling the manifold oppositions, jealousies, difficulties, misunderstandings, which ever attend such a season of transition and transformation as now was fast dawning upon the Divine society. The arrest of St. Peter and his threatened death was a great crisis in the history of the primitive Church. St. Peter's life was very precious to the existence of that Church, it was very precious for the welfare of mankind at large, and so it was a fitting time for God to raise up a banner against triumphant pride and worldly force by the hand of a supernatural messenger. [98] These elaborate precautions were doubtless taken on account of his escape on the previous occasion, when the Sanhedrin had arrested him, as narrated in the nineteenth verse of the fifth chapter. [99] In the fifth century an order of monks was established at Constantinople who practised this ceaseless worship. They were called Acoimetæ, or the Watchers. They are described at length in Bingham's _Antiquities_, Book VII., ch. ii., sect. 10, and in Smith's _Dict. Christ. Antiqq._, vol. i., p. 13. A similar attempt was made in the reigns of James I. and Charles I. by the well-known Nicholas Ferrar in a monastic institution which he planned in connection with the Church of England: see the article in the _Dictionary of National Biography_ upon his name.