The life and work of St. Paul

THE CONSULTATION AT JERUSALEM. 225
Jews still in bondage to their narrowest preconceptions brethren to whom
the sacred name of brethren could barely be conceded 1
they insinuated
themselves into the Church in the petty spirit of 2
jealousy and espionage, not
with any high aims, but with the object of betraying the citadel of liberty,
and reducing the free Christiana of Antioeh to their own bondage. St. Luke,
true to his conciliatory purpose, merely speaks of them as "certain from
Judaea;" but St. Paul, in the heat of indignant controversy, and writing
under a more intense impression of their mischievous infhicnco, vehemently
calls them " the false brethren secretly introduced." 3 But though, through-
cut their allusions to this most memorable episode in the history of early
Christianity, the Apostle and the Evangelist are writing from different points
of view, they are in complete accordance as regards the main facts. The
combination of the details which they separately furnish enables us to re-
produce the most important circumstances of a contest which decided for
ever the future of the Gentile Church.*
These brethren in name, but aliens in heart, came with a hard, plausible,
ready-made dogma one of those shibboleths in which formalists delight, and
which usually involve the death-blow of spiritual religion. It demanded
obedience to the Law of Moses, especially the immediate acceptance of cir-
cumcision 5 as its most typical rite; and it denied the possibility of salvation
on any other terms. It is possible that hitherto St. Paul may have regarded
circumcision as a rule for Jews, and a charitable concession on the part of
Gentiles. On these aspects of the question ho was waiting for the light of
God, which came to him in the rapid course of circumstances, as it carno to
the whole world in the fall of Jerusalem. But even among the Jews of the
day, the more sensible and the more enlightened had seen that for a pious
Gentile a mere external mutilation could not possibly be essential. Ananias,
who had the honour of converting the royal family of Adiabene, had distinctly
advised Izates that it was not desirable to risk his crown by external compliance
to a needless rite.6 It was only when men like Eleazar fierce and
1 This is expressly stated in the margin of the later Syriao version, and in two cursive
SISS. 8, 137. Epiphanius says that "their leaders -were Cerinthus, the subsequent
Gnostic opponent of St. John, and 'Ebion'" (Haer. 2S, 30). But Ebion is a mere
"mythical eponymus" (Mansel, Gnostic Her. 125 ; Tert. De praescr. Haeret. 33). Ebionite
is an epithet (Epiphan. ffaer. xxx.), and means "poor" (Orig.