The life and work of St. Paul

THE SAMABITANS THE EUNUCH THE CENTURION. 159
was not this sufficiently horrible? Bnt "to eat with them" to eat food
prepared by Gentiles to taste meat which had been illegally killed by Gentile
hands to neglect the roles of the Kashar to take food from dishes which
any sort of unclean insect or animal, nay even " the other thing," might have
denied was it to be thought of without a shudder? 1
Thus Peter was met at Jerusalem by something very like an impeachment,
but he confronted the storm with perfect courage. 3 What he had done he
had not done arbitrarily, but step by step under direct divine guidance. He
detailed to them his vision on the roof at Joppa, and the angelic appearance
which had suggested the message of Cornelius. Finally he appealed to the
outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which had been manifested in these Gentiles
by the very same signs as in themselves. Was not this the promised baptism
with the Holy Ghost ? was it not a proof that God accepted these Gentiles
no less
fully than He accepted them "
1 What was I that I could withstand
God?"
The bold defence silenced for a time the adversaries of an innovation which
they regarded as unscriptural and disloyal. They could not dispute facts
authenticated by the direct testimony of their six brethren whom Peter,
conscious of the seriousness of the crisis, had very prudently brought with
him from Joppa nor could they deny the apparent approval of heaven.
The feeling of the majority was in favour of astonished but grateful acquiescence.
Subsequent events prove only too plainly that there was at any rate
a displeased minority, who were quite unprepared to sacrifice their monopoly
of precedence in the equal kingdom of God. Even in the language of the
others 3 we seem to catch a faint echo of reluctance and surprise. Nor would
they admit any general principle. The only point which they conceded was
not that the Gentiles were to be admitted, without circumcision, to full com-
munion, still less that Jews would be generally justified in eating with them,
as Peter had done but only that " God had, it seemed, to the Gentiles also
unto life."
granted repentance
Meanwhile, and, so far as we are aware, in entire independence of these
initial movements, the Church had been undergoing a new and vast development
in Syria, which transferred the position of the metropolis of Christianity
from Jerusalem to Antioch, as completely as it was to be afterwards trans-
ferred from Antioch to Borne.
inconvenience rather than touch meat
1 To this day orthodox Jews submit to any
killed by a Gentile butcher (McOaul, Old Paths, 397, seq.). This leads sometimes not
only to a monopoly, but even to a downright tyranny on the part of the butcher who
has the kadima (Frankl, Jews in the East, ii. ).
2 Acts xi. 2. SuKpivovro irpbs avTov. Cf. Jud. 9,
* Acts xi. 18, apayt KCU TOIS i9vt