*

to the period during which the events described in Gal. ii. 1-10, took place. It would seem, at first sight, difficult, if not impossible, to draw from the words themselves, without reference to their position and connection, any inference bearing upon the question. Yet, when we look a little more closely, we may be able to detect some indication of the possibility of a discussion having taken place between Paul and the Jerusalem apostles, for the three words ἀσπασάμενος τὴν ἐκκλησίαν imply that a public meeting of some kind was held, and thus furnished an opportunity for that outbreak in behalf of the law mentioned in Gal. ii. 3-5. Nor is it a valid objection that the time spent by the apostle in Jerusalem must have been far too short for such important transactions to have taken place; for, although this might be inferred from the brevity of the notice, it is yet implied, in the fact that Paul stayed for the feast, that he must, at all events, have remained some days, thus allowing time for the private interview no less than the public conference. And if it is asked how Luke could have passed by such weighty events in so cursory a way, it may be answered that this is not inconsistent with his style, and that on other occasions, as Acts xvi. 6 and xviii. 23, he has embraced long periods of time and important events in the fewest possible words. So Dr. Wieseler justly remarks; but it may perhaps occur to the reader that there may have been likewise a special reason for the silence of the historian. If James and his colleagues showed any disposition to sympathise with the strong conservative party, as Paul's phrases, oi SokoûVTES, &c. seem to imply, and if their recognition of the gospel of uncircumcision was an unwilling concession, it would have well accorded with the interest in which the book of Acts, as we have already shown, was written to pass over the event altogether. Will it be said that, according to the Tübingen view of the composition of the work, he might have misrepresented the facts, and painted another picture of perfect harmony and peace? True; but this would have been impossible without setting Paul in his true light as the out and out opponent of the legal spirit, for he could not have escaped admitting the retractation of the apostolic decrees; and this, besides being derogatory to the dignity of those who had issued the decrees in the name of the Holy Spirit, would also have been inconsistent with his representation of Paul as only a very moderate enemy of Judaism and himself a respecter of the law.

The simple fact that there is nothing in this brief notice of Luke to prevent its embracing the transactions recorded by the apostle as having taken place at Jerusalem, is sufficient in the opinion of Dr. Wieseler to establish the identity of the two

* Gal. v. 21.

journeys. This, indeed, we cannot admit, because it proceeds upon the assumption that the book of Acts is a reliable authority. There are, however, several positive grounds for this view. We have already seen how Paul obtained from the Jewish apostles an acknowledgment of the claims of the Gentiles, so strongly urged by him, to a free and quite unconditional admission to the salvation of Christ; and as this is obviously inconsistent with the results of the apostolic council, so, on the other hand, it is in perfect harmony with what there is reason for believing must have been Paul's teaching on his last great missionary journey. It is quite intelligible that the apostle may have consented to be the bearer of the letters containing the decrees of the council,* and that he may have communicated the views put forward in Jerusalem, and sanctioned by himself, to the churches already founded by him and Barnabas; and yet that, on extending the sphere of his labours, he may also have enlarged his views, and carried out the consequences of his great doctrine of justification in Christ with more fearless determination than before. If we make this assumption, it will follow that the special object of the fourth journey was to make a protest against the apostolic decrees, and to obtain the sanction of the mother church for a departure from them; and this would exactly agree with Paul's account in Gal. ii. Now there can be little doubt that Paul actually taught doctrines opposed to the decrees of the Jerusalem church on his second missionary journey, and during the time which elapsed between Acts xvi. 4 and xviii. 22. As might be expected, this fact is not expressly stated in the book of Acts, but after it has been once noticed that the apostolic decrees were communicated to the churches already established, all mention of them ceases. And may not this account for the brevity of the allusion to the apostle's first visit to Galatia, if the most important fact in connection with it were the omission of Paul to fulfil the injunctions of the Jerusalem church in regard to his new converts? But not only is this silence very significant; we have also positive evidence of the same fact. When Paul was in Achaia, he was accused by the Jews of persuading men to worship God contrary to the law, that is, as is evident from Gallio's reply, the Jewish law whence it follows that he must have sought to convert the Gentiles without so much as insisting on the observance of those rules which were laid down for the " proselytes of the gate," and which were identical with the apostolic decrees. And if it may be inferred from the history that such was the procedure of Paul, the same thing finds a further confirmation in his own letters. In the first epistle to the Co† Ibid. xviii. 22.

Acts xvi. 4.

Ibid. xviii. 12-15.

rinthians, and in that to the Romans,† the apostle accords express permission to eat eidwλólvтa; and so far as he recommends abstinence at all, it is on the ground of charity, and with no reference to any positive command.

These epistles, it is true, were written subsequently to the fourth visit to Jerusalem; but it is probable that but one gospel was preached to the Corinthians, as we have no intimation of any thing else, and that on this point the epistle only contained a more precise statement of what had already been verbally communicated. If it be proved, then, that Paul ceased to regard the wishes of the Jerusalem church in regard to his Gentile converts, immediately on extending his labours into regions untried before, it would be quite intelligible that he should have revisited Jerusalem in order to explain his altered views, and demand acceptance for them; and thus the narrative of the Acts would become consistent with itself and with the statements of the apostle.

Again, the words ἵνα ἡ ἀλήθεια τοῦ εὐαγγελίου διαμείνῃ πpòs vμas, "that the truth of the gospel may continue with you," indicate clearly enough (unless, indeed, the vμâs, as perhaps is hardly possible, be understood of the Gentiles generally, and not specially of the Galatians) that Paul had already visited Galatia, previous to the interview with the apostles which he proceeds to describe. This follows from the use of the conjunctive mood. But the gospel was not preached in Galatia till after the apostolic council, whence it appears that Gal. ii. must refer to a subsequent period. Another argument to the same effect is drawn from the statement of Paul, that, in accordance. with the one condition imposed upon him by the elder apostles, he had been active in collecting money for the poor. It is improbable that this can have been the case on his long missionary journey, because not only does Luke preserve a total silence upon the subject, for which there could have been no motive, but the epistles to the Thessalonians, written during this period, likewise make no reference to a subject to which there are such repeated allusions in those to the Corinthians. The latter, moreover, refer to the collections for the poor in such a way as to imply that they had only recently commenced, that is, not much more than a year before the second epistle to the Corinthians was written. This is evident from 2 Cor. viii. 6 and ix. 2, according to which the collections had been begun by Titus, and not by the apostle himself, and the zeal of the Corinthian Christians had for the first time stimulated those of Macedonia to this kind of activity. On the other hand, it is

*x. 25, 27. + xiv. 2-4.
Acts xv. 40, xviii. 20.

Gal. ii. 5.

§ Ibid. ii. 10.

certain that Paul began to exert himself in this way very soon after the fourth visit to Jerusalem. This may be inferred from 1 Cor. xvi. 1, where the order given to the churches of Galatia must refer to a time not very long anterior to the time at which this statement was made, that is, to Paul's journey through Galatia, mentioned in Acts xviii. 23.

The next argument adduced by Dr. Wieseler has reference to the way in which Titus is mentioned by Paul. Is it probable that Paul would have taken an uncircumcised Greek with him to Jerusalem, when the very question for the decision of which he was sent up was that of circumcision? Such an act would have been only calculated to damage his own cause; while, on the other hand, there would have been no impropriety in it if this question had been once finally settled. The use of the singular number, moreover,* συμπαραλαβὼν καὶ Τίτον, clearly refers to a time when Paul and Barnabas were no longer acting together; and the same may be said of the words Tiros ó oùv uoi. Nor, indeed, is there any evidence that Paul had met with Titus before the meeting of the council at Jerusalem, but quite the reverse. It was an old opinion that Titus was a Corinthian Christian; and this seems very likely to have been the case, on account of the frequent mention of him in connection with the Corinthian church. If so, he would not have been converted till Paul's first visit to Corinth, which took place after the council; and, indeed, Dr. Wieseler endeavours to prove that he was the very man with whom the apostle resided in Corinth, and whose house joined hard to the synagogue, Τίτου Ιούστου being here not an improbable reading. If, then, the Jerusalem journey of Gal. ii. took place at a time when Paul and Barnabas were no longer so intimately allied as they had been previous to the disagreement about Mark, after the recognition by the apostles of a gospel of uncircumcision, and after Paul's first visit to Corinth, have had nothing to do with that described in Acts xv., and must have been identical with that noticed in Acts xviii. 22.

it

can

The use of the singular number by the apostle in all his references to the period immediately preceding his visit to Jerusalem, may fairly be regarded as an argument that his connection with Barnabas had ceased, which was not the case during the first missionary journey. Thus we have ἀνέβην—ἀνεθέμηντὸ εὐαγγέλιον ὃ κηρύσσω μήπως εἰς κενὸν τρέχω ἢ ἔδραμον. Οι the other hand, in speaking of the proceedings at Jerusalem, in which Barnabas bore a part, he uses the plural εἴξαμεν—ἡμεῖς overwμer. The separation, therefore, must already have taken place between the two missionaries, and Paul may possibly † Conf. 2 Cor. ii. 13; vii. 6, ff.; viii. 23; xii. 16, ff.

• Gal. ii. 1.

Acts xviii. 7.

have joined Barnabas at Cyprus, whither he had gone after the apostolic council,* and accompanied him to Jerusalem. Nor is the omission of all mention of Barnabas upon this occasion by Luke any great difficulty, for when the historian has told us almost nothing, it was not likely he would tell us that. There is one other circumstance which strongly favours Dr. Wieseler's view. Paul alludes to a certain occasion on which he had felt it his duty to administer an open rebuke to Peter on account of the inconsistency of his conduct. This is mentioned in close connection with the visit to Jerusalem,† and the language of the apostle clearly implies that Peter's fault consisted in the violation of principles to which he had already given his consent, and on which he had begun to act. Now these principles involved the abolition of all distinctions between Jew and Gentile. For what was Peter's offence? He had, it appeared, eaten with Gentiles at Antioch; but when certain of the more strictly Judaic party had come down from Jerusalem, he had changed his practice, through subserviency to their prejudices, and withdrawn from Gentile communion. Now it is quite inconceivable that Peter should have thus acted in direct opposition to the apostolic decrees immediately after he had himself given his sanction to them, nor would Paul have expected him to do so. And, indeed, this transaction at Antioch is generally referred to Acts xviii. 22, even by those who maintain the identity of the events described in Acts xv. 1-29, with those recorded in Gal. ii. 1-10. The words of the apostle, however, do not seem to us to admit of any long interval of time being supposed to have elapsed between verses 10 and 11 of Gal. ii., and hence it becomes necessary to push forward Paul's journey to a period immediately preceding the dissension in Antioch. In addition to these reasons for holding the identity of Gal. ii. 1-10 and Acts xviii. 22, Dr. Wieseler thinks that the same result may be derived also from the chronology of the Acts. He proves that Paul's conversion took place in the year 40 A.D., and his fourth visit to Jerusalem in the year 54, which would correspond with the statement of the apostle in Gal. ii. 1. Into this difficult question, however, we have left ourselves no space to enter.

The only serious difficulty in the way of the adoption of this view is the same which stands in the way of those critics who, with Neander and Lechler, assume that Gal. ii. refers to the date of the apostolic council, and maintain that while the historian has recorded that event which seemed of most public interest, the apostle has confined himself to the details of a private transaction, viz. the omission by Paul of all reference to so important a fact as the meeting of the council. But although