The life and work of St. Paul

THE CONSULXAIXOK AX JERUSALEM. 229
ha learnt that his own insight and authority were fully equal to those of the
Apostles who were in Christ before him ; that they had nothing to tell him and
nothing to add to him ; that, on the contrary, there were spheres of work which
belonged rather to him than to them, and in wliich they stood to him in the
position of learners; 1 that Jesus had fulfilled His own promise that it was
better for His children that He should go away, because His communion with
them by the gift of His Holy Spirit was closer and more absolute than by Hia
2 actual presence. But even now Pan! must have chafed to submit the decision
of truths which ho felt to bo true to any human authority. But for one circumstance
he must have felt like an able Roman Catholic bishop a Stross-
meyer or a Dupanloup who has to await a decision respecting tenets which he
deems irrefragable, from a Pope in all respects his inferior in ability and in
enlightenment. That circumstance was the inward voice, the spiritual intimation
which revealed to him that this course was wise and necessary. St. Luke,
of course, tells the external side of the event, which was that Paul went by
this as
desire of the Church of Antioch ; but St. Paul himself, omitting
irrelevant to his purpose, or regarding it as an expression of the will of
"
Heaven, tells his converts that he went up by revelation." Prom Paul also
we learn the interesting circumstance that among those who accompanied him-j
self and Barnabas was Titus, perhaps a Cretan Gentile whom he had converted
at Cyprus during his first journey. 3 Paul took him as'a Gentile representative
of his own converts, a living pledge and witness that uncircumciscd Greeks,
seeing that they wore equal partakers of the gift of the Holy Ghost, were not
to be treated as dogs and outcasts. The declared approval of God was not to
be set aside for the fantastic demands of man, and the supercilious tolerance
or undisguised contempt of Jews for proselytes was at once a crime and an
ignorance when displayed towards a brother in the faith.
Acts if there were any reason whatever for such a supposition ; but when we consider
bow impossible it was that such a visit should have occurred without the knowledge of
St. Luke, and how eminently the facts of it accorded with the views which he wished to
further, and how difficult it is to find any other occasion on which such a visit would
have been natural, we have no valid reason for adopting such an hypothesis. Nor,
indeed, can anything be much clearer than the identity of circumstances in the visits
tlius described. In the two narratives the same people go up at the same time, from
the same place, for the same object, in consequence of the same interference by the same
agitators, and with the same results. Against the absolute certainly of the conclusion
that the visits described were one and the same there- is nothing whatever to ecfc but
trivial differences of detail, every one of which is accounted for in the text. As for
fc)t. Paul's non-allusion to the so-called "decree," it is sufficiently explained by its local,
partial, temporary and, so far as principles were concerned, indecisive character ; by
the fact that the Galatiana were not asklny for concessions, but seeking bondage ; and by
tha Apostle's determination not to settle such questions by subordinating his Apoutolic
independence to any authority which could be described as cither " of man or by man,"
l.y anything, in short, except the principles revealed by the Spirit of God Himself.
1'rof. Jowett (Gal. i. 253) speaks of tho unbroken imago of harmony presented by the
narrative of the Acts contrasted with the tone of Gal. ii. 2 6; but "an unbroken imago
of harmony " is not very accordant with the TO.U.;) av^Tr,^t of Acts xv. 7, which is an
obvious continuation of the ati