The Acts of the Apostles

248 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
the Acts that can be maintained with absolute con-
fidence.
We have abeady discussed (pp. 195 j^. and elsewhere)
the high historical worth of this Antiochean source.
We owe to it most important information concerning
the early history of the Church of Jerusalem and the
beginning of the mission to the Gentiles, filling up
great gaps in the information we derive from the
epistles of St. Paul. Without this source we should
have been unable to form any conception concerning
certain fundamental historical questions, or we should
at least have arrived at a conception which would
have been incorrect. But there is one account in this
source which seems to threaten its trustworthiness
I refer to the Apostolic Decree of the Council of
Jerusalem.
Our concern is only with the Decree itself—the
rest of the narrative in chapter xv. either presents no
difficulties at all, or at least not such as would exclude
its composition by St. Luke i.e. by a man who was
in a position to make inquiries from the eye-witnesses.^
1 It must not, of course, be forgotten that other points of differ-
ence exist between Gal. ii. and Acts xv. The most glaring are
these—that, in the Acts, the Apostles seem from the first to have
stood upon the side of freedom, and that St. Paul is not represented
as standing on an equality with them, indeed they seem
rather to form a court of higher instance. But this is partly
only appearance. Even according to the Acts the conversion of
Cornelius did not have the result that the Apostles now became
missionaries to the Gentiles, or in plain terms, recognised the
Mission (St. Luke makes them refer to the story of Cornelius as
an event that had happened long ago), and even from the Acts
one can see clearly enough that it was the account which St.
Barnabas and St. Paul gave of the success of their mission that
led to the final decision. If, however, St. Paul, when compared
—
—