After the conference at Jerusalem Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch. According to the Book of Acts the letter of the Jerusalem Church was joyfully received; it meant a confirmation of Gentile freedom and relief from the attacks of the Judaizers. But new disturbances began, and Peter was concerned in them. He had gone to Antioch. There is not the slightest reason to think that his arrival occasioned anything but joy. The notion that Paul was jealously guarding his rights in a Gentile church and resented the coming of Peter as an intrusion has not the slightest basis either in Acts or in the Pauline Epistles. But at Antioch Jews and Gentiles were living together in the Church, and their juxtaposition presented a serious problem. The Gentile Christians, it will be remembered, had been released from the obligation of being circumcised and of undertaking to keep the Mosaic Law. The Jewish Christians, on the other hand, had not been required to give up their ancestral mode of life. But how could the Jewish Christians continue to live under the Law if they held companionship with Gentiles in a way which would render the strict observance of the Law impossible? Should the precedence be given to the observance of the Law on the part of the Jewish Christians or to the new principle of Christian unity? This question had not been settled by the Apostolic Council, for even if the Gentile Christians observed the provisions of the Apostolic Decree, table companionship with them would still have seemed to involve a transgression of the Law. Peter, however, took a step beyond what had already been settled; he relaxed the strictness of his Jewish manner of life by eating with the Gentiles. He was convinced of the revolutionary change wrought by the coming of Christ, and gave practical expression to his conviction by holding full companionship with all his brethren. After a time, however, and perhaps during an absence of Paul from the city, certain men came from James, and their coming occasioned difficulty. It is not said that these men were commissioned by James, and some readers have thought that "from James" means merely "from Jerusalem," James being named merely as representative of the church over which he presided. But even if the newcomers stood in some closer relationship to James, or even had been sent by him, it is an unwarranted assumption that James was responsible for the trouble that they caused, or had sent them to Antioch with the purpose of limiting the freedom of Peter's conduct. They may have abused whatever commission they had received. Moreover, it must be remembered that they are not expressly blamed by Paul. If they clung conscientiously to the keeping of the Law, as they had been accustomed to do at Jerusalem, Paul would perhaps not necessarily condemn them; for he did not on principle or in all circumstances require Jewish Christians to give up the keeping of the Law. But Peter had really transcended