The life and work of St. Paul

244 THE LIFB AND WOES OF ST. PAUL.
triet, and possessing only a temporary validity. 1 It was, in fact, a local
concordat. Little or no attention has been paid by the universal Church to
two of its restrictions ; a third, not many years after, was twice discussed and
settled by Paul, on the same general principles, but with a by no means
identical conclusion. 8 The concession which it made to the Gentiles, in not
insisting on the necessity of circumcision, was equally treated as a dead letter
by the Judaising party, and cost Paul the severest battlo of his lifetime to
maintain. If this circular letter is to be regarded as a binding and final
decreo, and if tho meeting of a single Church, not by delegates but in the
person of all its members, is to bo regarded as a Council, never was the
decision of a Council less appealed to, and never was a decree regarded as so
entirely inoperative alike by those who repudiated the validity of its conces-
sions, 3 and by those who discussed, as though they were still an open question,
no less than three of its four restrictions. 4
The letter came to the Churches like a message of peace. I; Its very limita-
tion was, at the time, the best proof of its inspired wisdom. Considering the
then state of the Church, no decision could have more clearly evinced the
guidance of the Holy Spirit of God.5 It was all the more valuable because
there were so many questions which it left unsolved. The heads of the
Church admitted and that was something that circumcision was nonessential
to Gentiles, and they may seem to have indulged in an extreme
liberality in not pressing tho distinction between clean and unclean moats,
and, above all, in not insisting on the abstinence from the flesh of swine. By
these concessions they undoubtedly removed great difficulties from the path of
Gentile converts. But, after all, a multitude o most pressing questions
remained, and left au opening for each party to hold almost exactly the same
opinions as before. A Gentile was not to be compelled to circumcision and
Hosaism. Good ; but might it not be infinitely better for him to accept them P
Might there not have been in the minds of Jewish Christians, as in those of
later Rabbis, a belief that " even if Gentiles observe the seven Noachiaa pre-
cepts, they do not receive the same reward as Israelites ? " a It is, at any rate,
clear that neither now nor afterwards did the Judaisers admit Paul's dogmatic
principles, as subsequently stated to the Galatians and Romans. Probably
.
2 Rom. xiv. ; 1 Cor. viii.
i
Hooker, Eccl. Pol. IV. xi. 5.
3 Gal. iii. 1 ; v. 2, and passim. It is astonishing to find that even Justin declares the
eating of fl8