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tion, and abode with him fifteen days, preserving a rigid incognito, to which James and Peter alone were privy. “But other of the Apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother." According to Acts, he was at Jerusalem some time before the Apostles who were all aware of the fact - were willing to receive him, which they were finally persuaded to do by the mediation of Barnabas. Mr. Howson, unconscious, it would seem, of any discrepancy, coolly concludes that Peter and James were the only Apostles in Jerusalem at the time, from the fact, that, while Paul affirms that he saw no other, the account in the Acts speaks of "the Apostles" without limitation: "He and James, the Lord's brother, the only other Apostle who was in Jerusalem at the time," &c.* This in direct contradiction and apparent oblivion of the positive statement in Acts viii. 1: "And at that time there was a great persecution against the Church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judæa and Samaria, except the Apostles.” (See also ver. 14 of the same chapter.)

Once more, Paul relates that, after this private visit of fifteen days to Peter, "I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and was unknown by face unto the churches of Judæa," &c. Acts, on the contrary, states: "And he was with them, coming in and going out boldly at Jerusalem. And he spake boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus," &c.

This striking antiphony between Acts and Galatians no exegesis has yet succeeded to explain, nor probably will succeed.† Mr. Jowett, the most recent of English commentators on the Pauline Epistles, and of recent commentators the most acute, remarks, in a note to the first chapter of Galatians: "Far more difficult is it to reconcile the narrative of St. Paul with the Acts of the Apostles, in which he is described on his first visit as preaching boldly and disputing against the Grecians; and again, on a subsequent occasion, as carrying up alms to Jerusalem." And he wisely abstains from any attempt to reconcile them.

* Chap. III. p. 103.

"All those attempts," says Baur, " to harmonize the two accounts, which interpreters and critics have thought it their duty to make, are mere labor lost." Paulus, &c., p. 105.

To us it seems that the visit of Paul to Jerusalem, mentioned in the ninth chapter of Acts, does not synchronize, and cannot be made to coincide, with the visit mentioned by the Apostle himself, in his Epistle to the Galatians, as the first after his conversion. And if this be so, it follows irresistibly that the former visit did not take place. For where the voices conflict, it is evident that the word of Paul, in a matter regarding his own personal history, must be taken as the normal authority. The same authority will require us to reject as spurious that other visit, in company with Barnabas, recorded in, Acts xi. 30. The true second visit referred to by Paul, Gal. ii. 1, is obviously the same with that which is mentioned in Acts xv., when a council was held at Jerusalem for the purpose of deciding the controversy respecting the ritual obligations of the Gentiles.

We come, then, to this result. Two visits to Jerusalem, after his conversion, are acknowledged by Paul in the Epistle to the Galatians. The first is not recorded in the Acts; the second is that which occurred in connection with the Antioch controversy, commemorated in Acts xv. On the other hand, two visits antecedent to the latter are reported in the Acts, both of which are irreconcilable with Paul's own statement, and must therefore be regarded as spurious.

Happily the time has past when, for thinking Christians, the discovery of an error in one of the books of the New Testament could invalidate the true authority, or seriously impair the inestimable value of that sacred volume. On the old hypothesis of infallibility, we do not see how a candid and critical reader could dispose of contradictions like these. But discard this untenable theory, and the explanation is obvious; namely, that the author of the Acts, together with the personal narrative, commencing perhaps with the thirteenth chapter, embodied in his history the reports which came to him, without accurately investigating their authenticity.

We cannot adopt the apologetic theory concerning this book, so zealously maintained by Baur in the volume named above. Baur supposes, as Schneckenburger* had done before

* Ueber den Zweck der Apostelgeschichte. Bern. 1841.

him, that Acts was written for the purpose of vindicating Paul to Judaizing Christians, who mistrusted the ethnical tendencies of their mighty coadjutor. This it does, according to him and Schneckenburger, by adducing, in the second part, several instances in which Paul conformed to the obligations of Mosaism, and by showing, in the first part, that Peter had preceded him in extending the Gospel to the Gentiles; that the Cilician, in this particular, did but follow in the steps of the Galileans. The theory supposes, moreover, an intentional parallel between Paul and Peter, of which the encounter with Simon Magus on the one hand and with Elymas on the other, the conversion of Cornelius and that of Sergius Paulus, the healing of the lame man in the temple and of the cripple at Lystra, the miraculous escape of either Apostle from prison, &c., &c., are signal examples. It is not our purpose to combat this theory, which we place among the things that can neither be proved nor disproved. We will only say, that, in our judgment, the alleged facts are quite inadequate to the support of the superstructure raised upon them. We fancy we discover a carelessness in the composition incompatible with so subtle a purpose as this hypothesis imputes to it. Meanwhile we fully agree with Baur, that in the apostolic history, "as in the evangelical, it is the unity of an individual life which forms the proper object of contemplation," and "that Christianity has become what it is, in its universal historical significance, only by means of the Apostle Paul." *

This critic has done much, and Mr. Jowett and others in England have done scarcely less, in these days, to illustrate the supreme agency of Paul in shaping the destinies of early Christianity, an agency which emerges into ever clearer and more impressive relief, as criticism demonstrates more and more the aspects and movements of the apostolic time. We do not exaggerate that agency when we affirm it to be equivalent to a new dispensation of Christian truth, an independent Gospel as different from the first expositions of Christianity as Christ was from the prophets of the Old Covenant. The most careless reader of the New Testament will per

* Einleitung, p. 5.

ceive that the Gospel preached by Paul differs essentially in some respects from that promulged by the Galilean disciples. Leaving out of view the writings ascribed to John, as expressing a later and more interior phase of development, we readily distinguish in the Apostolic Church, as represented in the Acts and Epistles, two successive and distinct Gospels.

What was the Gospel preached in the first ten years which succeeded the death of Christ? It was evidently and eminently a Hebrew Gospel. Read the first chapters of the Acts of the Apostles; note the expositions given by Peter to the Sanhedrim and to the people of Jerusalem, of Christianity as he and his colleagues understood it. The burden of his preaching is that Christ is the son of David, sprung from the royal stock of Israel, foretold by their national prophets, and therefore entitled of right to be their King; that he would soon reappear on the earth for that purpose, and take possession of the throne of his fathers; that all who repented of their sins, and were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, should be rescued from impending doom, and have their place and part in the new kingdom, and that all who would not receive him should be destroyed. "Repent ye, therefore, and be converted, that your sins shall be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord, whom the heavens must first receive until the times of restitution of all things." This was the first Christian Gospel. It was a national, Hebrew Gospel. We may call it a political Gospel; for though a moral and spiritual element was prominent in it, it was based on the idea of a reformed Jewish polity, a new celestial kingdom, with Jerusalem for its capital and Jesus Christ for its, visible head.

But the purpose of the Christian dispensation was not to be accomplished in that way. Christianity meant something more than the regeneration of the Jewish people. A great step remained to be taken before the Gospel could fairly enter on its destined career. It must first disengage itself from the narrow confinement of Judaism, and go forth as a universal religion, intended equally for all kindreds and nations. This must be its acknowledged and accepted destination. It must be understood that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, VOL. LXIII. -5TH S. VOL. I. NO. III.

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nor barbarian, nor bond nor free; that all national limitations and distinctions were merged and dissolved in the Christian confession, "One Lord, one faith, one baptism"; that the promised kingdom was not for the Jewish nation only, but for all mankind.

To effect this emancipation required another instrumentality than that of the Galileans who founded the first Christian Church. They were natives of Palestine, who had never mixed with other nations, to whom all beyond the borders of their own territory was forbidden and unclean. It was impossible for men so grounded in national prejudices, so sacramented to Jewish traditions, to accept with cordial zeal the idea of a grace which comprehended all nations in its merciful intent, and to take upon themselves the ministry to the Gentiles with the same alacrity with which they had prosecuted the home mission. Peter, it is true, had visited and baptized the Gentile Cornelius and his household; but that was within the limits of Palestine, and Cornelius was already a proselyte of the gate. Moreover, the Apostle was called to account by his brethren at Jerusalem for the very extraordinary step which he had taken. He excused himself with a vision, and with the evidence of the Holy Ghost. The plea was accepted, and extorted the wondering confession: "Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life." But it does not seem to have been accepted as a call to them to preach Christianity to the nations. It remained an exceptional case. So far as it depended on the Galilean disciples, Christianity would have remained a form of Judaism to this day. Another missionary was required to evangelize the Gentile world. And another was given. The same Providence which, pervading human history, produced the Christ, sent also in due season a fit interpreter of Christ, a teacher competent to unfold the Gospel, to extend its mission, to divest it of its nationality, and diffuse it through the world.

That teacher was Paul, a Jew by nation, but not a Judæan by birth, a native of Asia Minor, and a Roman citizen. To a thorough knowledge of Judaism he united a competent acquaintance with the two most important nations of antiquity. He was master of the Greek language, at that time the lan

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