Such compliance was regarded by the Tübingen scholars as absolutely incompatible with Paul's character, and therefore as unhistorical. But recent criticism has been becoming, to say the least, less certain about the matter. The incident is narrated in a concrete way which creates a most favorable impression; indeed, the passage seems even to belong to the supposed we-section source. Moreover, a sober study of the Pauline Epistles has shown that the attitude of Paul toward Judaism and toward the Law was by no means what Baur and Zeller, through a one-sided interpretation of the polemic of Galatians, had supposed. In particular, the sharing of Paul in a Jewish vow is only an exemplification of the principle which Paul lays down in 1 Cor. ix. 19-22 of becoming all things to all men. Where could the principle possibly have applied if it did not apply to the situation in Jerusalem at the time of Paul's last visit? Where, if not there, could Paul have felt bound to become to the Jews as a Jew in order that he might gain Jews (1 Cor. ix. 20)? There seems to have been no attempt at that time to force the Law upon Gentiles, and no tendency to regard it even for Jews as necessary to salvation. Compliance with Jewish custom would therefore not be open to the misunderstanding which might have made it inadvisable during the midst of the Judaistic controversy. The devotion of the Jewish Christians to the Law seems never to have been condemned by Paul on principle. Should he then run counter to Jewish feeling by pursuing a crassly Gentile manner of life in the very midst of Judaism, when the national life, in the troublous years before the Jewish war, was running high? The answer to this question is at any rate not so simple as was formerly supposed. Participation by Paul in a Jewish vow in Jerusalem is not beyond the limits of that devotion to the Jewish people which the Epistles undoubtedly attest. And it is not really derogatory to the character of Paul. Where the truth of the gospel was concerned, Paul was absolutely unswerving and absolutely without regard for personal considerations; but when the "weaker brethren" of his own nation could be won without sacrifice of principle, he was fully capable of becoming to the Jews as a Jew. While Paul was in prison in Jerusalem and in Cæsarea, what was the attitude of James and of the Jerusalem Church? The Book of Acts does not say, and far-reaching conclusions have sometimes been drawn from its silence. The Jerusalem leaders, it is said, were at least lukewarm in their defense of Paul; they themselves were zealous for the Law, and they had only been half-convinced of the loyalty of Paul; it is no wonder, then, that they were not anxious to bring Jewish disfavor upon themselves by championing the cause of Paul.